THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 



The STONE 

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Scene of the Battle of hong Island, Stirling's 
Headquarters, Cornwallis^ s Redoubt^ Occupied 
by Washington. Colonial Residence of Dutch 
Architecture. Built by Nicholas Vecnte^ 1699 






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The STONE HOUSE 
AT GOWANUS 

Scene of the Battle of Long Island, Stirling's 
Headquarters, Cornwallis's Redoubt , Occupied 
by Washington. Colonial Residence of Dutch 
Architecture, Built by Nicholas Vechte, 1699 

By GEORGIA ERASER 




WITTER and KINTNER 
Publishers, New York, 1909 






COPYRIGHT, 1909 BY 

Witter and Kintner 



©CI.A2529C9 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Prefatory Note 13 

CHAPTER ONE 
First Settlement at Gowanus 23 

CHAPTER TWO 
The Stone House in 1699 35 

CHAPTER THREE 
Military Works on Long Island 53 

CHAPTER FOUR 
American Troops on Long Island 67 

CHAPTER FIVE 
The Stone House as a Redoubt 75 

CHAPTER SIX 
The Battle of Long Island 95 

CHAPTER SEVEN 
The Retreat from Long Island 109 

CHAPTER EIGHT 
The British on Long Island 117 

CHAPTER NINE 
After the Revolution 123 

CHAPTER TEN 
Present Scene of the Battle 137 

Notes, 1699-1909 153 



'* CONSTANTLY PURSUING THAT ARRANT THIEF^ 
OBLIVION, AS HE STEALS INTO INFINITE DARKNESS 
WITH THE PRICELESS HISTORIES OF OUR LAND, THE 
ANTIQUARY HASTENS TO SNATCH SOME OF THE 
FLEETING MEMORIALS FROM HIS HANDS "—FIELD. 



ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS 

The House and Battlefield Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Colonial Silver 19 

Copper Tea Kettle 20 

Colonial Dressing Case 21 

Prints of the Stone House 39 

Map of Old Gowanus 46 

Portrait of Lord Stirling 57 

Military Map of 1776 72 

Colonial Money 91 

Letter of Washington to Stirling 92 

Memorial Tablet iii 

The Old Willow Tree 129 

Trunk of Old Willow Tree 131 

Map of Gowanus — Present Time 143 

Lithograph of Stone House 149 

Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn 151 



TO MY NEPHEW 
ALEXANDER EASTON ERASER 



PREFATORY NOTE 

DURING a recent sojourn at my old 
home in Rjhode Island, I renewed 
acquaintance with a painting which 
had been familiar to me on the walls of my 
uncle's home during my childhood. 

My uncle, Thomas Easton, was of that fam- 
ily of Eastons from which Easton's Beach, at 
Newport, was named, and to which belonged 
Nicholas Easton, twice president of Rhode 
Island under the Parliamentary Patent of 1643 
— his second term immediately preceding that 
of Roger Williams — and governor under the 
Royal Charter; also John Easton, governor 
under the same charter from 1690 to 1695. 

The picture had been in my uncle's posses- 
sion forty-one years, and he had received it 
from his uncle, George Andrews, of Brook- 
lyn, in whose possession it had been twenty- 
one years, and to whose order it was painted. 
When I returned to New York, I set about 
an investigation of the scene represented— that 
of a steeply-gabled house with the figures, 
1699, attached to one end. The house is situ- 

13 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

ated at the foot of some rising, wooded land 
to the right of the foreground; to the left is 
a lane, with enclosing wall and fence, leading 
to a road which passes the farther side of the 
house. Beyond the road there stretches mead- 
ows with a stream or ditch running to a creek. 
Still farther, to the right, is a road with clus- 
tered trees and two houses. In the extreme 
distance is a town or city. 

In a general way I had learned of the local- 
ity represented from the title — "The Washing- 
ton House on Long Island." This, however, 
called up merely vague memories of the great 
general's campaign. In order to inform my- 
self more particularly, I began a search which 
took me to libraries, both public and private, 
to historical museums, to genealogical soci- 
eties, to calls on "old residents," and to col- 
lectors of Americana. 

Interest that I had thought to satisfy with 
a visit or two to a local library and a trip to 
the site of the scene depicted, carried me 
farther and farther, and deeper and deeper, 
into geographical and historical lore. I be- 
came a peruser of old documents in faded 
handwriting, of records of towns, churches, 
and colleges. The historians did not satisfy 
me, so I went to the historians' sources, and in 

14 



PREFATORY NOTE 



so doing became possessed of that fever for 
research, that delight in a "find," which prob- 
ably only the historian and the explorer know. 
With but a single scene as my theme, a 
single locality, I naturally concentrated 
where others had diffused, and was thus en- 
abled to compare and weigh certain points to 
the more definite interpretation of them. Also, 
while the painting soon became secondary to 
my historic search, its presentment of a scene 
since vanished, and never elsewhere pictured 
fully, gave clues inaccessible to others. In 
short, by the light of this limned presentment, 
facts of history were brightened, and others 
added: these reach from the present day back 
to the Revolution, back to the Dutch Patents, 
back to the Royal grant of the Indian island of 
Matowack — Long Island — to the Earl of 
Stirling, under whom it became the Isle of 
Stirling; back to Hugh de Eraser from whom 
my own grandfather, Hugh Eraser, was di- 
rectly descended — Lord of Lovat and Kynnell, 
and who, as the historian, William Eraser, 
states, and as is also shown in the "Register of 
Royal Letters," was cousin and patron to Peter 
de Stirling away back in 1410. 

Of Long Island and the Stirlings there is 
much to tell, but in this history I have selected 

15 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

only that which bears directly upon the story 
of the Stone House, also known as the Wash- 
ington House, at Gowanus, and the region 
about it — the scene of the Battle of Long 
Island in the Revolutionary War. 

The many authorities consulted have given 
vivid accounts of the different episodes of this 
battle, but, as one of their number states, it is 
difficult to gain from these a clear understand- 
ing of the entire action. This, in a simple way, 
I have endeavored to do, at the same time that 
I have dwelt at length upon the engagement 
of General Stirling with the British at the 
Stone House, and over the area depicted in the 
frontispiece to this volume. In this I have 
been much asisted, as previously stated, by the 
new light thrown upon the topography of the 
region by the picture itself. 

Personal search, extending over a year in 
time, resulted in information regarding the 
last days of the house and the region of the 
battlefield which has never heretofore been 
presented in print. Of my indebtedness, how- 
ever, to the "Memoirs of the Long Island His- 
torical Society," to Henry M. Stiles's "His- 
tory of Brooklyn," to John Fiske's "American 
Ravolution," and to those early historians, like 
Furman, and later, Thompson, it would be 

i6 



PREFATORY NOTE 

impossible adequately to speak. To the many 
tracts of Colonial history, of original manu- 
scripts, and historical prints, in the Lenox 
Library, I am particularly indebted. 

Georgia Eraser. 
New York, September i, 1909. 



17 




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COPPER TEA KETTLE WITH CHARCOAL BURNER, USED BY 
THE FAMILY OF JAQUES CORTELYOU WHILE IN THE STONE 
HOUSE AT GOWANUS. NOW IN THE POSSESSION OF HIS 
GRANDDAUGHTER, MRS. MERWIN RUSHMORE. 




COLONIAL DRESSING TABLE OF MAHOGANY USED BY THE 
FAMILY OF JAQUES CORTELYOU WHILE IN THE STONE 
HOUSE AT GOWANUS. NOW IN THE POSSESSION OF HIS 
GRANDDAUGHTER, MRS. MERWIN RUSHMORE. 



CHA PTER ONE LONG ISLAND 

FIRST SETTLEMENT AT GOWANUS 

THE first settlement by white people 
within the boundaries of the present 
city of Brooklyn was made in 1636, just 
twenty-seven years after Henry Hudson 
dropped anchor from the Halve Maen in what 
is now New York Bay. 

In the year 1636, "William Bennet and 
Jacques Bentyn purchased from the Indians 
a tract of 930 acres of land at Gowanus, upon 
which, at some time previous to the Indian 
War of 1643-45, a dwelling house was 
erected." This was the beginning of the vil- 
lage of Gowanus, near Gowanus Bay; and 
the same name was given to the region border- 
ing Gowanus Creek, afterward the canal, and 
extending easterly to the wooded hills. 

The name, Gowanus, is an Indian one, and 
was said to be the place where an Indian, 
called Gowane, planted his corn. 

The second settlement within the present 
city limits took place in the year following 
that at Gowanus — 1637 — and, oddly enough, 

23 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

in a section similar in character, a low tract 
bordered by hills and pierced by bay and in- 
let, and lying to the north, as Gowanus lay 
to the south, of the peninsula of Brooklyn 
Heights. This northern tract was known as 
the Wallabout — originally Wahleboct — the 
name being given to the bay and adjacent lands 
as in the case of Gowanus. The settlers at the 
Wallabout were known as Walloons, or for- 
eigners, comprising, as they did, those who, 
while coming directly from Holland, were not 
of Dutch blood, but mostly political or re- 
ligious refugees to that land of toleration from 
France, England, Germany, and other coun- 
tries. 

The first settler at the Wallabout, and the 
second within the present limits of Brooklyn, 
was Joris Jansen de Rapelie, or Rapelje, him- 
self a "foreigner" of French descent. He is 
described as an "emigrant" of 1623, who first 
settled at Fort Orange (Albany), and in 1626 
removed to New Amsterdam, on Manhattan 
Island. According to this, Rapelie arrived in 
the New World but fourteen years after 
Henry Hudson reached its shores, and lived 
in New York eleven years before removing 
to Long Island. 

At this time there was decided demarca- 
24 



FIRST SETTLEMENT AT GOWANUS 

tion between those of pure Dutch strain 
and those who came with the Dutch in the 
same ships but who were not of the same 
blood. This is shown by the segregation, for 
a considerable period, of the Walloons — not 
only at the Wallabout but down through 
Gowanus, where were already the settlers pre- 
viously named, William Bennet and Jacques 
Bentyn, the first English, the second French, 
in origin. 

We may credit, then, the first settlement of 
Brooklyn to "foreign blood" though to Dutch 
enterprise. The later incoming of pure Dutch 
to this region, and the subsequent forming of 
villages, led to an amalgamation which, go- 
ing steadily on for a century and more, was 
practically complete at the time of the Revo- 
lutionary War. In this particular it must 
be remembered that Dutch records gave Dutch 
spelling to much that was not entitled to it, and 
rigorous search would probably bring to light 
the fact that many so-called early Dutch were 
not Dutch at all in origin. 

The first point known as Brooklyn, named 
after Breuckelen in Holland, was on a direct 
line between the Wallabout and Gowanus. 
This was on the declivity southeast of the pres- 
ent City Hall, about where Hoyt Street joins 

25 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

Fulton Street to-day. It will be seen that these 
earliest settlers sought the low lands, not only, 
probably, because the heights meant exposure 
to the Indians, but because the hills were 
wooded and would have to be cleared. Also, 
the broad meadow lands must have appealed 
to these people so late from Holland's green 
stretches. 

During the first half-century, progression 
w^as made from thatched huts and stockades to 
timber, brick and, in a few cases, stone dwell- 
ings. The last, however, were so scarce as to 
have been particularly designated as such in the 
localities thus favored. As to minor necessities, 
ships from Europe added blue china, some 
silver, and a great deal of pewter to the table- 
ware originally brought by the settlers. 
Houses were amply supplied with linen, and 
some cotton was raised and spun by the wo- 
men. It is curious to note that foreign coun- 
tries were supplying the American colonists 
with goods of similar character to that which, 
respectively, they furnish to-day. In the 
cargo of the sloop Mary, wrecked on the 
eastern point of Long Island in 1702, and 
having aboard goods from the French settle- 
ments in Canada for the Dutch of New 
Amsterdam, there is found — besides wines, 

26 



FIRST SETTLEMENT AT GOWANUS 

brandies, and furs — goods listed by the mate 
as follows: 

"i bolt of Holland Duck, i piece of Broad 
Canvas. i8 pieces and 2 remnants of several 
sorts of stuff. 7 pieces of colored dimity. 8 
pieces of striped Kentings. 4 Remnants of Al- 
ligars. 3 remnants of Dyed Calico. 4 Printed 
Calico Carpets. 2 Bundles of Beads. 9 Pieces 
of Printed Lining or Calico, and a remnant 
of Light Colored Cloth 14 yards. 2 pieces of 
stuff and 2 remnants, i Piece of Light Col- 
ored Flannel." 

If this was a sample of the cargoes of 
"goods" brought to the colonists of the period, 
together with what was spun and woven by 
themselves, we can imagine that the four- 
posters were well valanced, and the belles of 
the day well "done up" in the figured muslins 
referred to as calico. 

Home-made rugs and mirrors were in the 
"best rooms" of ordinary homes, and there 
were also some books and pictures, the first 
mainly Bibles and Psalms. According to Val- 
entine, "the walls of the principal rooms in 
all classes of dwellings were adorned by en- 
gravings, colored and plain, fifteen to twenty 
in number, in narrow black frames." 

The extensive trade with the East Indies, 
27 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

and the East generally, by Holland at this 
period, brought much of the Orient to the 
Dutch settlements in America. In prominent 
households, teakwood furniture, delicate 
China, and rare Eastern silks were added to 
the mahogany, pewter, and silver of those of 
more moderate standing. Men and women of 
the wealthiest class dressed elegantly — the 
men in broadcloth, with satin and linen ac- 
cessories; and the women in silks, linens and 
velvets. Gold and silver ornaments were 
plentiful, and diamonds were not unknown. 
According to Stiles, many persons of ample 
means came out from Holland, and these had 
homes and apparel equal in many cases to 
what they had been accustomed in the Old 
world. Each prominent settler possessed at 
least two slaves, valued at from one hundred 
and twenty to one hundred and fifty dollars 
each. 

In the year 1660, there were thirty-one 
families in the entire region of the Wallabout, 
Breuckelen, and Gowanus; and the church 
at Breuckelen, which presided over this united 
section, numbered twenty-seven members. 
These, however, increased rapidly thereafter. 

Of this section of Western Long Island, a 
most intimate account is given in the "Journal 

28 



FIRST SETTLEMENT AT GOWANUS 

of a Voyage to New York in 1679-80," by 
Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, emissaries 
from a religious sect called Labadists, who 
visited America with the object of selecting a 
suitable home for the sect. They write how, 
crossing the ferry from Manhattan to Long 
Island, they continued "up the hill, along open 
roads, and a little wood, through the first vil- 
lage, called Breuckelen, which has a small and 
ugly church standing in the middle of the 
road." This was the first church building in 
Brooklyn, built in 1666. 

They turned to the right after leaving 
Breuckelen, arriving at Gowanus, where they 
were well entertained with whatever their 
hosts happened to have on hand, milk, cider, 
and fruit being particularly mentioned. They 
speak of the peach trees, "all laden with fruit 
to breaking down." And continuing, "We 
came to a place surrounded with such trees 
from which so many had fallen off that the 
ground could not be discerned, and you could 
not put your foot down without trampling 
them; and notwithstanding such large quan- 
tities had fallen off, the trees still were as full 
as they could bear." 

They visited the house of Simon de Hart, a 
French Walloon, who lived in Gowanus on a 

29 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

part of the original Bennet and Bentyn pur- 
chase. The house stood at what is now Twen- 
ty-eighth Street. Here they found great hospi- 
talit)^, together with a wood-fire of oak and 
hickory. After describing this fire, they con- 
tinue : "There had been already thrown upon 
it, to be roasted, a pailfuU of Gouanes oysters, 
which are the best in the country. . . . They 
are large and full, some of them not less than 
a foot long, and they grow sometimes ten, 
twelve, and sixteen together, and are then like 
a piece of rock. Others are young and small. 
. . . They pickle the oysters in small casks, 
and send them to Barbadoes and the other 
islands. We had for supper a roasted haunch 
of venison, which he (De Hart) had bought 
of the Indians . . . and which weighed 
twenty pounds. The meat was exceedingly 
tender and good, and also quite fat. . . . We 
were also served with wild turkey and a wild 
goose. . . . We saw here, lying in a heap, a 
whole hill of watermelons, which were as large 
as pumpkins." 

Later they write of Gowanus : 

"There is, toward the sea, a large piece of 
low, flat land which is overflown at every 
tide, like the schorr (marsh) with us, miry 
and muddy at the bottom, and which produces 

30 



FIRST SETTLEMENT AT GOWANUS 

a species of hard salt grass, or reed grass. 
Such a place they call valey, and mow it for 
hay, which cattle would rather eat than fresh 
hay or grass. . . . There is also a tract which 
is somewhat large, of a kind of heath, on which 
sheep could graze. . . . This meadow, like all 
others, is well provided with creeks, which are 
navigable and very serviceable for fisheries. 
There is here a grist mill driven by the water 
which they dam up in the creek; and it is 
hereabouts they go mostly to shoot snipe and 
wild geese. In the middle of this meadow 
there is a grove into which we went, and 
within which there was a good vale cleared 
ofif and planted." 

The meadow here described was that di- 
rectly at the Stone House of this history — 
not erected till twenty years later — as the old- 
est mill in Gowanus was at the historic mill- 
ponds just beyond, in the frontispiece hidden 
by the house itself. The heath where "sheep 
could graze," the "grove," and the "dam in 
the creek," proclaim that the area described 
was the region of the Vechte farm, the subject 
of the succeeding chapter. 

The inhabitants of Gowanus, having the ad- 
vantage of the creek, went to New York by 
their own boats, rather than overland and to 

31 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

the ferry. When back in New York, the 
travelers speak of arriving at their house and 
finding "Simon of Gouanes who had brought 
a load of wood." 

They went thereafter many times to 
Gouanes, and other points on Long Island. 
They were particular friends of Gerritt, 
Simon de Hart's brother-in-law, who took 
them in his boat on many of their trips around 
New York Bay. Later, while in Mary- 
land, they referred again to Gowanus oysters: 
"After supper we eat some Maryland oysters 
which he — their host — had brought up with 
him. We found them good, but Gowanus 
oysters at New York are better." 

Of the bay at the Wallabout, which they 
visited, and where they conversed with Caro- 
lyna, wife of the settler Joris Jansen Rapelje 
— herself a French Walloon — they write: 

"This is a bay tolerably wide where the 
water rises and falls much, and at low tide is 
very shallow." 



32 



CHAPTER TWO NICHOLAS VECHTE 

THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 

STARTING with the first farms of Go- 
wanus and the Wallabout, land was taken 
rapidly along the entire stretch connect- 
ing the two points. These farms began at the 
creeks or bays, and stretched up through the 
meadows to the wooded hills, at the borders of 
which the homesteads were built. As time 
advanced, the evacuation of the nearby woods 
by the Indians, and the pressure for more land 
by the colonists, led to the accession of the 
wooded patch in line with each previous 
boundary, so that later patents in this vicinity 
included clear rights from the waters of bay 
or creek to the crest of the backing hills. At 
the present day at Gowanus, this would mean 
from the canal to the heights of Greenwood 
or Prospect Park, including in the last-named 
what is now Park Slope. In this manner each 
farm had its waterway, its meadow, its garden 
at the wood's edge, and its timber. 

One of the above-described favored stretches 
began at what is now the Gowanus Canal be- 

35 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

tween First and Sixth Streets, stretched back 
to the present Fifth Avenue, over what is prac- 
tically level ground, then began the steep 
ascent of the present Park Slope — traversed 
transversely by Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and 
Ninth Avenues — to Prospect Park, at the 
point now crowned by the Litchfield Man- 
sion, to-day park property. 

This area, indicated in the accompanying 
diagram, was known during the latter part of 
the Seventeenth Century as the Vechte farm; 
and in the year 1699 Nicholas Vechte erected 
at the edge of his wooded slope the Stone 
House of this history. 

How long Nicholas Vechte owned the farm 
previous to the erection of the house, or 
whether any simpler edifice preceded it, is a 
matter merely for conjecture. What is known 
is this: It was the only stone house in Go- 
wanus at the time of its erection, and for a long 
time thereafter; it was built so staunchly as to 
withstand siege in one of the hottest engage- 
ments of the Revolutionary War, its walls be- 
ing several feet thick; and it remained in 
existence till the last decade of the Nineteenth 
Century, even then Gatling guns being neces- 
sary, it is said, to force apart the stones of its 
walls. 

36 



THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 

And not only staunchly but finely was it 
built, a splendid mansion for its day and place 
— two stories and a half in height, the gable 
adorned with brass figures of the date of 
erection, 1699. Most dwellings of this period 
were but a story and a half in height, with a 
door and two windows on the main side. The 
fact that the Stone House at Gowanus was of 
sufficient length to have a door in the middle 
with windows on either side, as well as its 
unusual height, probably gave it the appella- 
tion, used by historian Thompson and others, 
of "double house." 

The time of the building of the Stone House 
was one rife with momentous afifairs of state 
in the New York Colonies; in the year 1691 
the first permanent "Assembly of representa- 
tives of the people" was established — the first 
real step in freedom of government for these 
colonies. Trouble with the Indians had then 
well abated, and piracy — with which the 
American and West Indian coasts had been 
affected — came to an end about this time. In 
fact, it was in the same year as the building of 
the Stone House at Gowanus, 1699, that the 
famous Captain Kidd — who had been sent 
three years previously from England to sup- 
press piracy, and who had himself become the 

37 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

worst pirate of all — landed near Easthampton, 
Long Island, and there buried some of his 
often referred to treasure. Incidentally, it may 
be stated that the treasure there buried was re- 
covered. 

Back of the Stone House ascended the 
wooded hill ; trees edged the roadway, a stone 
wall and a fence enclosed the garden, and the 
meadow stretched before to the creek. To 
the left could be seen the waters of Gowanus 
Bay, widening to the distant Bay of New York. 
Across the creek, the land rose to hills, extend- 
ing northeasterly as far as the eye could see, 
grassy and in places tree-topped — the penin- 
sula of Brooklyn Heights. 

Before the house, across the road, there 
bubbled a spring of clear water. This spring, 
no doubt, determined the location of the home- 
stead. It was the source of a stream which 
found its way across the meadow to the creek. 

Written originally, Claes Arentse Van 
Vechten, or by himself Klaes Arents Vecht, 
Nicholas Vechte "with his wife Lammetie, 
three children, and a boy (colored slave) emi- 
grated from Norch, or Nora, a community in 
the province of Drenthe, Holland, in the ship 
Bonticoe (Spotted Cow), arrived in New 
Netherlands, in April, 1660, settled, as near as 

38 




1 111. (uilll;l.^^n .\iA.\.Mox lUH.si'. 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWAXUS, AS PICTURED IN THE 
VALENTINE MANUAL OF 1858. REPRODUCED BY PERMIS- 
SION OF THE LENOX LIBRARY. 




THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS — FRONTISPIECE TO 
THE "history of BROOKLYN." BY HENRY R. STILES. 
REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF THE LENOX LIBRARY. 



THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 

can be ascertained, in the Eighth ward of 
Brooklyn, on the farm extending from First to 
Fifth Streets, and erected in 1699 the old stone 
house known as the Vechte mansion." 

The above is taken from the history of the 
Bergen family (which intermarried with the 
Vechtes) by Teunis G. Bergen, who goes on 
to say: 

"It is possible that he — Claes or Nicholas 
Vechte — may have resided at one period on 
Staten Island, for he obtained, September 29, 
1677, from Governor Andros, a patent for 120 
acres of upland and 12 acres of meadow along 
the Kil Von KuU on said island, which prem- 
ises he conveyed January 17, 1689, to his son, 
Gerrett Claesen, as per record of deeds in 
office of secretary of state. New York." 

Regarding the above, it is practically cer- 
tain that the builder of the Stone House at 
Gowanus lived for a considerable period at 
Staten Island on this same patent on the Kil 
Von Kull, after his arrival in the New World; 
as this would adequately explain the fact that 
he and his son Hendrich had been twenty- 
seven years in the New World at the time of 
their signing the oath of allegiance to the new 
governor, Dongan, on Long Island in 1687, 
although no mention had been previously 

41 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

made of either father or son in this region. 
So influential a family would undoubtedly 
have been noted in Long Island annals had 
they resided there; so it is probable that the 
date, 1687, very nearly coincides with the re- 
moval of the family from Staten Island and 
the Kil Von KuU to western Long Island — 
two regions not at all dissimilar in character. 
Also, it was close to this period, in 1689, that 
Claes conveyed the Staten Island property to 
his son, Gerritt, as previously noted. 

Gerritje, the daughter of the Staten Island 
Gerritt, and consequently granddaughter of 
Nicholas (or Claes) Vechte, married Fred- 
erick Jacobsen Bergen. About the same time, 
another of the Bergens married the daughter 
of Simon De Hart at Gowanus, that De Hart 
whom the Labadist travelers so frequently 
visited, and whose house is described in the 
first chapter of this book. Owing to this mar- 
riage, the De Hart House became subse- 
quently the Bergen House, long famous in 
history. Also, by these marriages, became 
linked the De Hart and Vechte families, 
whose homesteads at Gowanus — the former 
at the cove, the latter at the creek — remained 
till modern times as the two oldest houses of 
the region about. 

42 



THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 

Owing to the varying spelling of names at 
this period, confusion of personality is fre- 
quent. For instance, not only was the family 
name of the builder of the Stone House con- 
stantly varied, but the first as well; also, 
the middle name was frequently used as the 
final one. Thus, Gerritt, son of Claes Vechte, 
was referred to, even in legal documents, as 
Gerritt Claessen, when his entire name was 
Gerritt Claesen Vechte, or Van Vechten. 
Also, in legal matters the wife used her maiden 
name only, as indeed she did in many others. 
Consequently, as a widow, Gerritje Bergen 
would sign herself as Gerritje Vechte; also, 
sometimes as Gerritje Claessen, from her 
father's middle name. Tracing relationship 
thus becomes something of a puzzle to stu- 
dents of the time; and were the names as set 
down to be alone relied upon, the search might 
prove, in certain cases, almost futile^ 

Hendrich Vechte, also written Hendrich 
Claessen Vechte, went with his father to Long 
Island. In 1690, he was elected a commis- 
sioner of Brooklyn, and was "re-elected each 
successive year until 1699." I^ ^^ possible that 
his failure of re-election in this year — the date 
of the completion of the Stone House — was 

43 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

due to the family's removal from Brooklyn to 
Gowanus, then two distinct communities. 

As time goes on, however, the name ap- 
pears in Long Island records. In 1701, Hen- 
drich is named as a justice of the peace. About 
this time Sarah Van Vechten married Teunis 
Rapelje, grandson of that Joris Jansen 
Rapelje, who first settled the Wallabout, 
and whose daughter was proclaimed the 
first white child born on American soil 
north of Virginia. The grandmother of this 
Teunis, and wife of the settler Joris Jansen 
Rapelje, was the famous Catelyna.Trico, who 
talked with the Labadist travelers, and who, 
like the vivacious Parisian she was before 
her arrival in the New World, left to posterity 
the oft-quoted account of her experiences in 
the ship New Netherland, reaching these 
shores in March, 1623, with "thirty Walloon 
families" ; as well as her subsequent journey- 
ing to Albany, then Fort Orange, the return 
to New Amsterdam, and the final settling on 
Long Island. She was long the social arbiter 
of this section, and her grandson's marriage to 
Sarah Van Vechten probably brought her fre- 
quently to the Stone House at Gowanus. 

The church in Brueckelen, described by the 
Labadists, which presided as well over the 

44 



THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 

spiritual welfare of Gowanus and the Walla- 
bout, and which the Vechtes attended together 
with the Rapeljes, the Brouers, and others 
of now well-known names of the neighbor- 
hood, was the scene of as lively controversies 
as often stir the peace of present-day religious 
organizations. In a quarrel between factions 
of the church as to whether the minister, a 
Mr. Freeman, should be allowed to preach on 
a certain Sunday, it is stated by Furman, in 
his "Notes Relating to the Town of Brooklyn 
on Long Island," that "Hendrich Vechte, 
Esq., a justice of the peace, was presented at 
the King's county sessions. May the 14th, 
1710, for coming into the Brooklyn Church on 
Sunday, August 10, 1709, with his pen and ink 
in his hand, taking of people's names, and 
taking up one particular man's hatt, and in 
disturbance of the minister and people in the 
service of God." 

In commenting on this. Historian Thomp- 
son writes : 

"Vechte's plea was that in obedience to an 
order of the Governor, he did go into the 
church as alleged, to take notice of the persons 
that were guilty of the forcible entry made 
into the church, that by Abram B rower, and 
others, by breaking of said Church door with 

45 




B 



D 

E 
F 
G 

H 
I 

J 
K 

L 

M 



Stone House of Gowanus, owned by the Vechtes in 1699 and 

1776. 
The Lower Mill, built by Abram Brower in 1701. Owned by 

Nehemiah Denton during the Revolutionary War, and then 

called Denton's Mill. 
The Upper or Gowanus Mill — Oldest Mill in Brooklyn, 

called Freeke's Mill during the Revolutionary War. 
Branch of Gowanus Creek extending into Vechte Farm. At 

the present day an arm of Gowanus Canal. 
Upper, or Freeke's Mill-Pond. 

Lower Mill-Pond. Called Denton's Mill-Pond during the War. 
Private canal of Nicholas Vechte, connecting Brower's Pond 

with his own creek. 
Porte Road, running from Gowanus Heights across mill-ponds. 
Flatbush Road, running from Flatbush, over Wooded Heights, 

to Brooklyn. 
Gowanus Creek, now the Gowanus Canal. 
Brook on the Vechte Farm, rising from spring beside the Stone 

House and emptying into arm of the Gowanus Creek. 
Gowanus Creek widening to Gowanus Bay. 
Island where many soldiers were buried. 



THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 

force and arms, forcibly entering into said 
Church, notwithstanding the forewarning of 
Mr. Freeman, the minister, and his people to 
the contrary." 

The court discharged Vechte, declaring that 
he acted but in the performance of his dut}^ 
as laid down by the Governor. But it is to be 
noted that Mr. Hendrich Vechte was a mem- 
ber of the court which discharged him. 

This particular quarrel in the church was 
the occasion of disputes leading almost to fisti- 
cuffs, and, as one complainant has it, "all over 
these Dutch ministers." 

In the "History of Kings County" by Henry 
R. Stiles, there is set forth an incident which 
at once brings the humanness of Nicholas 
Vechte close to the readers of the Twentieth 
Century, and brings close also the two old 
neighbors, Vechte and Abram Brouer. The 
narrative runs: 

"Denton's pond (so-called by the historian 
because of its ownership by Nehemiah Denton 
at the time of the Revolution) was the subject 
of a curious contract about 1709 between its 
original proprietors, Abram and Nicholas 
Brouer, and Nicholas Vechte, the builder and 
occupant of the old 1699, or Cortelyou, house. 
To the strong predilection of his race for 

47 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

canals and dikes and water communications, 
old Vechte added the traits of eccentricity and 
independence. His house stood on a bank a 
few feet above the salt meadows, at a distance 
of a hundred yards from the navigable waters 
of the creek. To secure access to them, from 
his kitchen door, Vechte dug a narrow canal 
to the creek, but the ebb-tide often left his boat 
firmly sunk in the mud when he wished to 
reach the city market with the produce of his 
farm. He, therefore, contracted with the 
Brouers to supply him with water from their 
pond; and a channel was dug, in furtherance 
of his scheme, to a water-gate, through which 
his canal was to be flooded. The old Dutch 
farmer was acustomed to seat himself in his 
loaded boat, while it was resting in the mud 
of the empty channel, and hoist his paddle as 
a signal to his negro servant to raise the gate. 
The flood soon floated his boat, and bore him 
out to the creek, exulting with great glee over 
his neighbors whose stranded boats must await 
the next flood. The contract for this privilege, 
as well as another, by which Vechte leased the 
right to plant the ponds with oysters," are 
still in existence. (Notes.) 

From the early part of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury, little mention is made in histories of the 

48 



THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 

locality of either the Van Vechten family or 
its neighbors; due to the fact that records 
were lost with the occupation of the Brit- 
ish during the Revolution. Of such as re- 
mained, it is stated that in 175 1, Nicholas 
Vechte of Gowanus, grandson of the first 
Nicholas, is facilitating approach to his prop- 
erty from the sea. The narrative runs : 

"In August, 1 75 1, Isaac Sebring, in consid- 
eration of 117 pounds, conveyed to Nicholas 
Vechte, Jerry Brouer, and others, all Gowanus 
residents, the fee of a strip of meadow, begin- 
ning at the east side of a little island where 
John Van Dyke's mill-dam is bounded upon, 
running from thence northerly into the river, 
and twelve feet and a half wide." He was also 
to make a ditch along this strip, according to 
Stiles in his "History of the City of Brook- 
lyn," at least six feet deep, "and to allow the 
grantees the use of a footpath, two feet and a 
half wide, to dragg, or haul up their canoes or 
boats. March 16, 1774, the Colonial Assem- 
bly of the state passed an act empowering the 
people of Gowanus to widen the canal, keep 
it in order, and tax those who used it." 

The canal was a short cut by water to New 
York for Gowanus residents. It ran from the 
creek to what is now Atlantic Basin, and was 

49 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

used up to modem times. From first to last, 
the love of canals, as well as the name 
Nicholas remained in the family, Nicholas 
Vechte, great-grandson of the builder of the 
Stone House, still owning the property at the 
time of the Revolutionary War. 



^a.: e^^t-^:,.^./^ 



FACSIMILE OF THE SIGNATURE OF JAQUES 
CORTELYOU^ FROM THE "HISTORY OF THE 
BERGEN FAMILY," BY TEUNIS BERGEN. 



50 



CHAPTER THREE LORD STIRLIN G 

MILITARY WORKS ON LONG ISLAND 



BROOKLYN, by the year 1776, was 
possessed of some four thousand in- 
habitants. Writers have referred to it 
at that time as a prosperous agricultural com- 
munity. It had undergone difficulties in the 
way of titles to lands under alternating Dutch 
and English rules, and had come through some 
serious affairs with the Indians ; hence, at this 
time, it was about ready to settle down to 
the enjoyment of comforts achieved in the 
new home. 

These settlers were possessed of good lands ; 
they had schools and churches; no doubt many 
of them considered the altercation with Eng- 
land but another of those upheavals of govern- 
ment which had at times deprived them of 
their land titles and made security of prop- 
erty uncertain. However this may be, there 
is no doubt that many viewed with intense con- 
cern the arrival, on the i8th of February, 
1776, of four hundred troops under General 
Charles Lee. 

53 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

Disliking these intruders upon their peace, 
many adhered to this sentiment both actively 
and passively throughout the war. And the 
feeling increased with the spread of the first 
military operations from the peninsula of 
Brooklyn Heights — overlooking New York 
Bay on the west — to that series of easterly 
heights from which could be viewed the vast 
plain stretching to the southern shore of Long 
Island. Prospect Range was the name given 
to the eastern series of hills, whose posi- 
tion is very well indicated on the popular 
maps of Brooklyn by the green-tinted area of 
the Cemetery of the Evergreens, Eastern Park- 
way, Prospect Park, and Greenwood Ceme- 
tery. Military operations were thus brought 
directly into that fine belt of farms which be- 
gan in the salt meadows of Gowanus and 
stretched back through the woods to the crest 
of Prospect Range. Officers were stationed 
in the farm houses, and the soldiers pitched 
tents about, while agricultural pursuits gen- 
erally were given over to the activities of de- 
fense, even the women dropping their weav- 
ing to wait upon the army which had so pre- 
cipitately overwhelmed western Long Island. 

General Lee it was who first offered 
outside assistance to New York, and who 

54 



MILITARY WORKS ON LONG ISLAND 

subsequently, on February 3rd, arrived there 
from Connecticut with twelve thousand men. 
Lord Stirling, at the time, was military com- 
mandant at New York, and he had while 
there "performed a very gallant act," accord- 
ing to historian Heading: "Although the 
Asia man-of-war, a British ship, lay in the 
harbor, he one night fitted out a pilot boat and 
some smaller boats, and taking his men with 
nothing but muskets, put to sea and captured 
an English transport laden with stores, etc., for 
the enemy at Boston." 

Less than two weeks after his arrival on 
Long Island, General Lee started south to 
Charlestown; and on March 6th Lord Stirling 
crossed to Long Island and took command of 
the projected works there. That he skilfully 
and assiduously pursued the task of fortifica- 
tion is everywhere admitted — an almost in- 
credible amount of work having been accom- 
plished in the following months. That it was 
not entirely completed is not surprising when 
time, and the extent of the defenses, are con- 
sidered. 

On Brooklyn Heights a chain of forts was 
established. These began with Fort Putnam 
on the north, and extended to Red Hook, the 
southernmost point of the peninsula. The 

55 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

first of these to be mounted with guns was 
Fort Stirling, situated at Coenties Slip, or at 
what is now Columbia, Orange and Clark 
Streets, which in the frontispiece to this vol- 
ume would be directly back of the City Hall 
spire, and overlooking the East River. In- 
trenchments and redoubts marked the lines be- 
tween the forts. 

To the east, on Prospect Range, no forts as 
such were attempted; but earthworks, re- 
doubts, and barricades were general, and 
a regular picket line extended from what is 
now Eastern Parkway to Greenwood. The 
line was especially strong at Gowanus — the 
nearest point in the eastern range to the lines 
at Brooklyn, and the most direct in approach 
from the southern, or ocean, shore of Long 
Island. 

The Americans in Brooklyn had British in- 
vasion from both land and water to consider; 
and there was the added uncertainty as to 
whether New York or Brooklyn would be 
first attacked. For this reason, the work of 
fortification in both places was little less than 
stupendous, time considered, extending in its 
entirety for fifteen miles — from the heights of 
Gowanus on Long Island, to those of Harlem 
on Manhattan. In Brooklyn half the male 

56 




PORTRAIT OF LORD STIRLING, FROM THE PAINTING BY 
BENJAMIN WEST, IN THE POSSESSION OF DR. ROBERT WATTS. 



THE OFFICERS GIVE LORD STIRLING THE CHARACTER OF AS 
BRAVE A MAN AS EVER LIVED." FIELD. 



MILITARY WORKS ON LONG ISLAND 

population were drafted for the work of de- 
fense, and they were obliged to furnish, beside 
picks, hoes, shovels, and axes, wood and brush 
for the barricades. 

While Prospect Range was prepared for 
outpost or picket duty only, the tremendous 
importance of these heights as a natural bar- 
rier between the southern shore of the island 
and the lines at Brooklyn was fully appreci- 
ated by all concerned. For this reason, no 
doubt, General Lord Stirling, among the brav- 
est and most resourceful of the American com- 
manders, was here placed in charge on the 29th 
of June — when the British fleet, and the army 
under Howe, anchored off Sandy Hook. 

With his arrival off the coast, Lord Howe 
immediately began overtures for peace. Find- 
ing, however, that the only condition which 
would be entertained by the colonists was abso- 
lute independence, he proceeded to land a 
large force at Staten Island — in all about nine 
thousand men. Here he was joined by a num- 
ber of loyalists, particularly from Long Island. 

Further negotiations with Washington were 
then attempted, backed by advices from Eng- 
land, who at that particular moment was in no 
mood for war with the American Colonies, 
having her hands full with troublesome foes 

59 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

on the Continent. But again the negotiations 
failing, Howe proceeded to land his entire 
force, and on the 22nd of August an immense 
British army took camp at Gravesend — 
stretching thence for several miles toward 
Jamaica Bay. 

In the "Memoirs of the Long Island His- 
torical Society" there is given a vivid descrip- 
tion of this period: 

"For five days the white tents of the enemy 
covered the plain beneath the hills, almost as 
far as the eye could distinguish their form. 
Five miles to the south they stretched, in an 
unbroken line. . . . The roll of the enemy's 
drums, the rattle of arms and accoutrements 
in the daily parade, and the shout of command, 
rose faintly to the ear from the wide plain; 
and the sight and sound combined to exhibit 
to the sadly thin and feeble lines of the Amer- 
ican army on the hills, what a vast armament, 
what gigantic forces, could in a single hour 
be hurled upon them." 

In Brooklyn, General Greene had command 
within the lines. He was a most capable offi- 
cer, and had made himself acquainted with all 
the details of arms and locality. Washington 
was now obliged to give particular attention 
to Brooklyn, although the British ships in 

60 



MILITARY WORKS ON LONG ISLAND 

command of Admiral Howe, brother of the 
General, lay menacingly in the bay, and might 
at any moment attack New York. 

New York, at this time, was about its pres- 
ent width at Wall Street. North and south, 
it reached from Chatham Street to the Bat- 
tery; and beyond, "Bowery Lane" ran through 
a bower of orchards and gardens. Fortresses 
were all along the water front, at the northern 
end of Manhattan Island, and across on the 
Jersey shore. Many of the streets were barri- 
caded, and a line of redoubts ran from river 
to river on Canal Street. 

The army was about evenly divided between 
Brooklyn and New York. While New York, 
situated on the mainland, would prove un- 
doubtedly the ultimate place of attack, yet it 
had been pointed out that the Heights of 
Brooklyn overlooked New York as Bunker 
Hill and Dorchester Heights overlooked 
Boston. 

Washington's headquarters at this moment 
were on Manhattan, but his time was spent 
about equally between New York and Brook- 
lyn. Carefully and anxiously he visited every 
point of the fortifications. On the 23d of Au- 
gust, Howe issued a proclamation to the loyal- 
ists of Long Island, promising protection to 

61 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

such as would relinquish American arms and 
join the King's forces. On the day following, 
Washington addressed the soldiers in Brook- 
lyn. His address ran in part: 

"The enemy have now landed on Long 
Island, and the hour is fast approaching in 
which the honor and success of this army, and 
the safety of our bleeding country, will depend. 
Remember, officers and soldiers, that you are 
freemen, fighting for the blessings of liberty, 
and slavery will be your portion, if you do 
not acquit yourselves like men. Remember 
how your courage and spirit have been de- 
spised and traduced by your cruel invaders, 
though they have found by dear experience at 
Boston, Charlestown, and other places, what 
a few brave men, contending in their own land, 
and in the best of causes can do against hire- 
lings and mercenaries. . . . Those who are 
distinguished for their gallantry and good con- 
duct may depend on being honorably noticed 
and suitably rewarded; and if this army will 
but emulate and imitate their brave country- 
men in other parts of America, he (the com- 
mander) has no doubt they will, by glorious 
victory, save their country, and acquire to 
themselves immortal honor." 

But while thus rallying his troops, there 
62 



MILITARY WORKS ON LONG ISLAND 

can be little doubt of Washington's anxiety. 
Again and again he visited the Brooklyn lines. 
On the 26th, General Greene, being prostrated 
by a fever which affected about one-quarter 
of the troops in Brooklyn, was superseded by 
General Putnam. As this officer was more or 
less unacquainted with the locality, the change 
did not add security to the situation. On the 
same day, Washington visited all the outposts. 
According to Lossing, "on the 26th, he (Wash- 
ington) again visited the lines. . . . All that 
day he was occupied in visiting the redoubts 
and guard posts, and reconnoitering the enemy, 
until he made himself well acquainted with 
the relative position of the belligerent forces." 
It is said that what he then observed "gave 
him great anxiety." 

The idea of certain historians that Wash- 
ington never went without the lines at Brook- 
lyn cannot be upheld, one excellent authority 
notwithstanding; it is not easy to believe that 
a commander like Washington would not 
have been an eye-witness to the enemy's 
position at this critical moment, and him- 
self have viewed the works of defense 
nearest the British lines. In fact, from the 
Heights of Brooklyn, it would have been 
impossible to have viewed the British 

63 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

encampment, or to have taken cogniz- 
ance of the successive moves of the enemy 
after landing. The real point of vantage in 
this respect was that occupied by the forces 
(large map) on the slopes of Gowanus, and 
here to the Stone House, the most important in 
the neighborhood, as early history has it, Wash- 
ington must have come. Indeed, at this par- 
ticular moment, it was probably only the 
threatening attitude of the British ships in 
the harbor which called Washington to Man- 
hattan at all. On the evening of the 26th he 
was reported as "very anxious," and unable to 
sleep, feeling sure that with the morning the 
Republican arms would be attacked by both 
land and sea. Yet he finally composed him- 
self with the now famous, oft-quoted reflec- 
tion : "The same Providence that rules to-day 
will rule to-morrow." Thus giving himself 
into the hands of Divine guidance, he fell 
asleep, only to wake in the morning, as he had 
expected, to the "deep thunder of distant 
cannon." 



64 



CHAPTE R FOUR GENERAL HOWE 

AMERI CAN TROOPS ON LONG ISLAND 

TROOPS from Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
Maryland, and New England had been 
poured into Brooklyn. As previously 
suggested, many of these were raw recruits — 
at the same time, the "very flower of the Amer- 
ican army" was at Gowanus with Stirling. One 
of Stirling's regiments was made up of young 
men from the most prominent families of 
Maryland. According to a Hessian account, 
they were " very tall, fine men. The same 
writer declares that Stirling's was the only 
American regiment on Long Island which 
was regularly uniformed and armed. The 
men wore a red and blue uniform, and carried 
very fine English muskets and bayonets." 

Four roads led from the south shore of 
Long Island to Brooklyn. Two of these were 
more or less natural passes in the hills, one 
by way of Flatbush directly through what is 
now Prospect Park, and the other a little 
north by the town of Bedford. The third 
made a detour toward Jamaica, skirting the 

67 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

hills to the east at what is now the cemetery 
of the Evergreens; while the fourth and, 
strategically, the most important, turned the 
western foot of the hills by the bay shore, and 
swung around through Gowanus. This was 
called the Shore Road, as it followed the shore 
of New York Bay from the Narrows, at which 
point the British army and navy were in direct 
communication with each other. (Large map.) 
Because the Shore Road was the most direct 
route from the British camp to the Brooklyn 
lines, the region of its approach was most 
thoroughly fortified, and placed in command 
of Stirling. The adjoining pass through the 
hills was given to General Sullivan. The ex- 
treme east was unprotected except by guard- 
posts. The reason for this was probably two- 
fold: first, there were not enough troops to 
garrison the entire range; second, it was still 
uncertain at what point — whether at Man- 
hattan or Brooklyn, whether by land or water, 
or both — the first move would be made, and 
Washington relied on Stirling to give warn- 
ing of the enemy's line of action. When 
this could be ascertained, American troops 
were to be massed at the point of intended 
attack— which was probably the best that the 
Commander-in-Chief could do, with fifteen 

68 



AMERICAN TROOPS ON LONG ISLAND 

miles of fortified front imperfectly garrisoned, 
and one-third of the army in Brooklyn help- 
less with fever. 

Points of locality were soon well known to 
Howe. He was possessed of numerous spies, 
and was assisted by such loyalists of the dis- 
trict as had joined the British at Staten Island, 
and also after the landing at Gravesend. He 
was able, therefore, when the time came, to 
find his way by native guides through lanes 
and woodpaths — keeping to the four main 
lines of approach previously indicated, yet 
really avoiding the barricaded roads, and the 
redoubts and earthworks thrown up around 
the passes. 

Previous to the 27th, the British had shown 
some intention of making their way gradually, 
various skirmishes having occurred on the 
25th and 26th. On the evening of the 26th, 
however, while the British lay so close to the 
American outposts that the pickets on the hills 
could sometimes hear calls and drum beats, 
fires were burning in the enemy's camp and 
there was no sign that anything out of the 
ordinary was contemplated. But when night 
had descended so that nothing was visible but 
the campfires which he purposely left burn- 
ing, Howe noiselessly began to form his 

69 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

troops in marching order. By midnight all 
preparations were complete, and the start to- 
ward Brooklyn made. 

The troops were in four divisions. The 
nearest, or Shore route to Gowanus, was given 
to General Grant with his Highland regi- 
ments. The next in point of geography, the 
Flatbush Road, crossing Prospect Range, was 
entrusted to the Hessians under General de 
Heister. The third, by way of Bedford, was 
in the hands of General Cornwallis; while the 
remainder of the army, conducted by Howe in 
person, and with Generals Clinton and Percy, 
followed the farthest or eastern road by 
Jamaica and the present Cemetery of the 
Evergreens. 

It was the British intention to have Grant 
and de Heister engage Stirling and Sullivan 
respectively; while the other generals with 
one-half the army were to swing to the north- 
east, and, later, joining their compatriots in 
action, complete a circle which would enclose 
all the American troops without the Brook- 
lyn lines. According to the understanding. 
Grant would — by right of nearest way — en- 
gage the enemy first. But he had orders to be 
chary, to hold back until an agreed signal 
from the other divisions should inform him 

70 



AMERICAN TROOPS ON LONG ISLAND 

that they had been successful in turning the 
Americans' left. 

Grant's route from the Narrows along the 
Shore Road to that point between the foot of 
Gowanus Bay, or Cove, and the beginning of 
the wooded heights — called then the Heights of 
Gowanus, now Greenwood — where he was in- 
tercepted by Lord Stirling, is plainly shown on 
the accompanying British Military Map, and 
lettered MM. The opposing forces of the 
Americans at this point are also plainly shown 
but not lettered. Lord Stirling's position dur- 
ing his address to his men at the junction of 
the Porte and Gowanus — or Shore — Road be- 
side the Stone House on the Vechte farm, and 
just opposite the mill-pond, is well indicated. 



71 



CHAPTE R FIVE ISLE OF STIRLING 

THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 

IT is a singular coincidence tliat in the 
battle which ensued, General Stirling, its 
principal figure, was fighting on territory 
to which at one time he had personally laid 
claim. Born William Alexander in New York, 
1726, just half a century previous to this en- 
gagement, he had visited England in order to 
establish his right to the title and estates of the 
Scotch Earls of Stirling. These estates included 
property both in Europe and America; and, 
strange as it may appear, the whole of Long 
Island was included in the American portion. 
This island — called Matowack by the Indians 
— was part of a grant, which included Nova 
Scotia and Nantucket, made to William Alex- 
ander, First Earl of Stirling, by James the 
First of England. The English monarch 
had been a particular friend of Stirling when 
the former was James the Sixth of Scotland. 
Stirling was possessed of certain qualities 
which James lacked but aspired to. On the 
other hand, Stirling aspired to place and 

73 



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THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

power, not being satisfied with the literary 
gifts which undoubtedly were his. As a say- 
ing of the time had it, James was born a king 
and aspired to be a poet, while Stirling was 
born a poet and aspired to kingship. However 
this may have been, it was William Alexander, 
First Earl of Stirling, who did so much to- 
ward the translation of the Psalms. He was 
a poet of undoubted talent, and was as well a 
friend of poets — particularly of Drummond 
of Hawthornden — but also became possessed 
of a wide range of interests, which included 
for a time the New World, as well as all that 
was going on in state politics and finances in 
England. He was the dispenser of the 
Baronetcies of Nova Scotia, himself the Pre- 
mier Baronet, as well as Viscount of Canada 
— favors of James I, and Charles L 

When granted to Stirling by the Council 
of New England at London at the re- 
quest of the monarch, the island of Matowack 
was given the name of the Isle of Stirling; 
and the Earl immediately placed his agent 
there, and collected quit-rents from the set- 
tlers. This ownership and agency, together 
with the collecting of rents, continued through 
the lifetimes of the Second and Third Earls of 
Stirling; the Fourth Earl, however, sold his 

76 



THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 

rights in the island to the Duke of York, at 
the same time that the Duke was given pos- 
session of New Amsterdam, changing the 
name to New York. The price was to be three 
hundred pounds per year. This, however, 
was never paid, and it was on the basis of 
this non-payment that William Alexander of 
New Jersey, when claiming the lapsed title of 
the Earls of Stirling, as well as their estates, 
included in this his right to Long Island. His 
claim was based on descent from the uncle of 
the First Earl. 

This claim was not allowed by the Crown, 
but his countrymen thought he was justly en- 
titled to its benefits, and henceforth he was 
known among them as Lord Stirling. 

On the eventful 27th of August, 1776, when 
at three o'clock in the morning Stirling set 
forth from his quarters, the Vechte farm at 
Gowanus, to face the British foe, it would not 
be a matter for surprise had thoughts of his 
denied inheritance mingled with the loftier 
ones of patriotism. In any case, one of the 
most heroic battles of the Revolutionary War 
was fought that day, and on soil once an Im- 
perial gift to the American general's kinsman. 

Stirling's gallantry in the face of what he 
must have known to be overwhelming odds 

77 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

was evidenced in the words he spoke after 
forming the men for battle; he referred to a 
speech which, while in England, he had heard 
delivered on the floor of the House of Lords 
by this same General Grant against whom they 
were proceeding to march. In this speech 
Grant had averred that, given five thousand 
men, he could drive all disafifected Americans 
clear across the continent. Stirling, referring 
to this speech, said to his men: 

"He may have his five thousand men with 
him now; we are not so many, but I think we 
are enough to prevent his advancing further 
over the continent than this mill-pond." 

According to Field, the tide-mills of Brook- 
lyn "formed one of the most striking and char- 
acteristic features of the scenery. The slug- 
gish streams where the lazy tide crept in its 
sinuous course among the reeds, were dammed 
at convenient points, and when the ebb had 
lowered the surface below the flume suffi- 
ciently, the clatter of the simple machinery 
announced that the run of six hours had com- 
menced." 

Speaking of these mills, Teunis Bergen 
writes: "The one known as Freeke's Mill, or 
the old Gowanus Mill, was probably the old- 
est. Its mill-pond was formed by damming 

78 



THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 

off the head of Gowanus Kil. In 1661 this 
mill was held conjointly by Isaac de Forest 
and Adam Brouer, the latter purchasing the 
interest of the former." 

As in the days of the Indians, when Gowane 
planted his corn in the fields round about, the 
grain still grew abundantly in Gowanus, and 
was ground in the mills called respectively 
Freeke's and Denton's at the time of the Revo- 
lution, or "Upper" and "Lower" by the sol- 
diers. Denton's mill, however, was built by 
Abram and Nicholas Brouer, sons of Adam 
Brouer. The pond was formed by damming 
a branch of the Gowanus Kil, which ran at 
the foot of the farms of Nicholas Vechte and 
that of the Brouers. The Porte Road, which 
ran across the creek between the two ponds, 
was exactly on the line between the Vechte and 
the Brouer farms. The proprietors of these 
mills were said to have been loyally true to the 
American cause. 

The old Gowanus road, which was "estab- 
lished in 1704, left the Flatbush turnpike just 
above the toll-gate, and ran south in the gen- 
eral direction of Fifth Avenue, until it reached 
the vicinity of the present Fifth Street, where 
it deflected southwesterly towards the present 
junction of Middle Street and Third Avenue, 

79 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

thence following the line of that avenue along 
the shore. 

"Branching ofif westerly from the Gowanus 
road . . . was the road leading to Denton's 
and Freeke's Mills. On the roads were the 
houses of Nehemiah Denton and John C. 
Freeke (time of the Revolution). These men 
had been merchants; were rich; and among 
the first in Brooklyn to use coaches or 
barouches." 

These names have caused much confusion 
in Revolutionary history, resulting in the 
impression that the action took place over 
a much wider area than was the case. In point 
of fact, except for the morning engagement 
with Grant at Greenwood, practically the en- 
tire area of the battle between Stirling and the 
British was encompassed within the space pic- 
tured in the frontispiece to this volume. The 
only bridged way over the creek and salt 
meadows was at these mills, and when the 
upper or "yellow mill" was set on fire by the 
British, the Americans had to take chances 
with the lower mill, or swim the current of the 
creek. 

As for Stirling's words to his soldiers — 
words of pride and heroism — they might have 
been realized had Sullivan been able to hold 

80 



THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 

De Heister and the Hessians at bay on the 
Flatbush Road. On Stirling's side, everything 
pointed to victory till the rout of Sullivan left 
the way open for Cornv^allis, and, later, those 
that had come by the route still farther to the 
east. As it was, Stirling advanced from his 
position on the Gowanus slope opposite the 
mill-ponds, beside the Stone House, and went 
as far as the foot of what is now Greenwood, 
before encountering Grant. 

The British, at word of Stirling's coming, 
had entrenched themselves in the woods. It 
was as yet not near daylight, and for a time 
both generals satisfied themselves with sending 
out companies of forty or fifty men at a time. 
Indeed, it is said that Stirling was surprised at 
the British general's apparent timidity. This 
was explained later when, at dawn, Grant re- 
ceived a signal from the British right telling 
him that De Heister had met Sullivan and 
been victorious. Then ensued the real battle 
— as Fiske says, the first real battle of the 
Revolutionary War — beginning with Stirling 
and Grant at Greenwood, and ending with 
Stirling and Cornwallis at the Stone House at 
Gowanus. 

For several hours the battle raged between 
Grant and Stirling, and Stirling was holding 

8i 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

his own handsomely, when word arrived that 
the British were advancing upon his rear, and 
that Sullivan had fallen before De Heister, 
and was now a prisoner of the Hessians. Stir- 
ling was not slow in perceiving his danger. 
Leaving several regiments to continue the en- 
gagement with Grant, he turned back along 
the road he had that morning traversed. He 
met Cornwallis at the Stone House; the 
British general had taken possession of Stir- 
ling's quarters, and was using the house as a 
redoubt. 

The Americans outside the Brooklyn lines 
were now in possession of but a small segment 
of that circle of conquest planned by the Brit- 
ish. This consisted of the open Gowanus 
meadows threaded by the creek, and with 
crossings only at the mill-ponds. It was un- 
doubtedly a beautiful sight on that summer 
day — the water, the waving grass, and the 
velvety slopes of the opposing western heights 
where were ensconsed what remained of the 
American arms on Long Island; — yet a ter- 
rible place in which to be trapped for battle, 
as the sea rose at high tide and found its way 
through the tall meadow grass, which, con- 
cealing it, made a deceptive path of retreat. 

At this moment, however, Stirling had no 

82 



THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 

intention of retreating. He had succeeded 
with Grant, he had left brave men to continue 
that engagement, and with Maryland, Dela- 
ware, and Pennsylvania troops, he believed 
that he could cope with Cornwallis, conse- 
quently he went at the task with his usual 
determination and bravery. Three times, it is 
said, he charged the Stone House where 
Cornwallis was entrenched, and where the 
British commander had placed guns, both 
within the house pointing through the win- 
dows, and without at the corners. And with 
each charge the British fell back. 

It seemed for a time as though victory 
were to perch on the Americans' banners, 
and for a time it did: Cornwallis was dis- 
lodged from the house, and his guns taken. 
Indeed, the sturdy little fort — and sturdy it 
was with its thick, impenetrable walls — was 
the only point of real victory in the entire 
battle of Long Island. But just as this was 
accomplished, word came of reinforcements 
for Cornwallis. The whole right wing of 
the British had made successfully the long 
detour of the Jamaica Road, had found prac- 
tically no resistance to the north-east, and was 
now — with Howe himself in charge, as well 
as Generals Percy and Clinton — sweeping 

83 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

around to form that circle of conquest which 
Grant, Cornwallis and De Heister combined 
had been as yet unable to complete. 

Stirling now saw that victory of arms was 
impossible, yet he would not surrender. Again 
his eyes must have swept that open segment of 
charming but treacherous meadow land which 
lay between him and safety on Brooklyn 
Heights. To the north, by the mill-ponds, he 
beheld a scene that must have momentarily 
sickened his heart: the British, in the last stage 
of conquering march, had set fire to the "yel- 
low" or upper mill, leaving open only the 
causeway by the lower, or Denton's mill. But 
even this was soon in flames. 

It was then a question of surrender or sacri- 
fice — indeed of martyrdom — and Stirling 
chose the latter. In order to save the bulk of 
his forces, he called to him six companies of 
Smallwood's Maryland regiment of riflemen, 
and with these, now himself using the Stone 
House as a redoubt, he charged home upon 
the "astonished" Britishers, who had ex- 
pected immediate surrender. Again and 
again the little host faced the rain of English 
bullets, sustaining the charge nobly, and hold- 
ing their own until the last of the men had 
found safety across the meadows. 

84 



THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 

Thus the bulk of Stirling's army arrived 
safely within the lines at Brooklyn. It is 
authoritatively stated that of the thousands 
who engaged in battle, but four hundred on 
each side were killed; and of the one thousand 
Americans who were taken prisoners, prac- 
tically all were from Sullivan's command. In- 
deed, General Stirling and his brave four 
hundred Marylanders so successfully engaged 
the whole of the British forces at the Stone 
House, that those who safely retreated carried 
with them within the lines the Maryland 
colors, and several prisoners whom they took 
on the way. 

On the military map of the fateful year 
1776, made by the British, and here illustrated, 
the line of American works on the Heights of 
Brooklyn is plainly set forth. The exact posi- 
tion of the nearest stronghold — Fort Box — to 
the Stone House, and the American soldiers' re- 
treat therefrom under cover of the New York 
regiments brought over by Washington on the 
one side, and the Maryland regiments under 
Stirling at the Stone House on the other, is 
plainly indicated by the line drawn between 
Fort Box and the Gowanus road at the Vechte 
farm. The final course of the struggle at the 
narrowest space between the American lines 

85 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

on Brooklyn Heights and the redoubt at 
Gowanus, may be traced clearly; also the posi- 
tion of the main redoubts on the heights of 
Gowanus overlooking the plain and encamp- 
ment of the British previous to the 27th, as well 
as the various lines of advance, and points of 
engagement. 

The centering of final action around the 
Stone House has never been fully explained in 
cause. This house was really equipped as a 
fort by the Americans ; its walls were pierced 
for loopholes, and the main story reinforced to 
a thickness of six feet. From the house there 
ran a subterranean passage to the neighbor- 
hood of the crossing at the creek. It is un- 
certain whether this passage was built by 
Nicholas Vechte as a means of escape in event 
of attack by the Indians in the early days, or 
whether it was constructed by American 
soldiers after the house was selected for pur- 
poses of defense. In any case, the holding of 
this fortified position would add security to the 
American soldiers because of the underground 
passage. This explains Cornwallis's eagerness 
to capture the house in the beginning, and 
the terrific fight put up by Stirling to regain 
it. It was, probably, with captured American 
guns that Cornwallis held the house when 

96 



THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 

Stirling — turning back from Greenwood and 
Grant — marched to its possession. The fury — 
thus explained — of the Americans' attack 
drove "the astonished Britishers" from their 
position, as elsewhere noted ; and they held it 
till the very last, when the whole British army 
on the island was bearing down upon it. 

That some of the Americans escaped by 
means of the underground way, is probably 
certain while Stirling held the place; and 
possibly before, at Cornwallis's first attack 
upon it and previous to Stirling's final arrival 
upon the scene. 

While the structure as a whole was too 
strong to fall before the English guns, it must 
have been riddled and injured in many places. 
Indeed, signs of the restoration of parts are 
shown plainly in the frontispiece ; and it is the 
opinion of the writer that the facade was orig- 
inally "stepped," according to the most elegant 
architectural fashion of the time, and that 
these points were so much injured in the battle 
that they were subsequently "filled in" to a 
regular roof-line. This assumption is based 
upon double facts. First, the angle-lines of 
masonry bordering fancifully both facades 
indicate that these rows of apparently decora- 
tive angles are of different material from 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

that of the rest of the edifice; second, the 
facade, front and rear, extends beyond — or 
over-rides — the roof, which would hardly be 
the case were it not clearly a projection for 
ornamental purposes. No sketch of the house 
antedates the Revolutionary War, so the de- 
ductions drawn are solely those from the prem- 
ises set forth above, but which seem sufficiently 
strong. This mansion equalled any in the 
Dutch colonies of this period, if it did not sur- 
pass such, in elegance of architecture. And 
in this connection it may be pointed out that the 
best that could be had at the time would un- 
doubtedly have been secured by such an inno- 
vator and successful monopolist of privileges 
as Nicholas Vechte proved himself to have 
been in the account of his special canal, and 
the outwitting of his neighbors in the private 
flood-gate. 



88 




COLOXIAL MOXEY ISSUED BY NEW JERSEY, HOME OF LORD 
STIRLING, IN 1776, ABOUT THREE MONTHS PREVIOUS TO 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. THE TOBACCO LEAF 
IS EMBLEMATIC OF THE ONE-TIME USE OF THE PLANT AS ,A 
MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE IN AMERICA. IT IS NOTICEABLE 
THAT THE PENALTY FOR COUNTERFEITING WAS DEATH. 




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CHAPTER SIX MARYLAND TROOPS 

THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 

MANY historians have given vivid 
accounts of the Battle of Long 
Island. These accounts often speak 
of the Stone House "as partly of brick 
and partly of stone." This is a curious 
error, which, however, may be explained by 
the fact that the house which at present bears 
a tablet in memory of this engagement is of 
brick; in itself, this is now an old house, built 
long before the demolishment of the Stone 
House; so that the confusion of the actual 
sites, later noted, has caused confusion regard- 
ing the material of which the historic house 
was built. It was of stone, and that only until 
after the war when a wooden addition was 
built at the rear. Even as early as 1824, the 
Stone House was renowned for its antiquity; 
Furman, in his "Notes Relating to the Town 
of Brooklyn on Long Island," says: "Among 
the most ancient remains are two houses, one 
owned by the family of Cortelyou, built in 
1699." He does not state that this is the oldest 

95 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

house, but it was, undoubtedly, one of the 
three oldest standing at that time. And writ- 
ing in 1834, historian Thompson says: " The 
oldest building supposed to be now standing 
in the town is situated at Gowanus, in the 
southern part of the city, owned, for several 
generations, by the Cortelyou family, which 
was doubtless a very fine and substantial 
edifice at the period of its erection, in 1699. 
It is a double house, built of stone, and was 
occupied by the Commander-in-Chief of the 
American army in 1776, a short time anterior 
to the battle of Long Island." 

It is to be noted that neither historian calls 
this the Cortelyou House, merely stating that 
it was then occupied by a family of that name; 
but from these early statements, certain his- 
torians who came later fell into the error of 
naming it the Cortelyou House. 

In the frontispiece, the hill shown in the 
distance to the left of the house, known as 
Bergen Hill, was occupied by Fort Box, 
named after Major Daniel Box, General 
Greene's "Brigade- Major" — this position is 
now commemorated by Carroll Park; also by 
Fort Greene, which was but three hundred 
yards from Fort Box. Fort Putnam (in the 
war of 1812 the name was changed to Fort 

96 



THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 

Greene) was, in the picture, at about that 
point in the distance framed by the edge of 
the trees at the right. This mounted five guns. 
Corkscrew Fort, or Cobble Hill, was close to 
where the City Hall appears. During the 
Revolutionary War an almost continuous par- 
apet ran from Fort Putnam to Fort Box — the 
entire pictured distance of the frontispiece; 
and from this parapet thousands watched the 
conflict at the foot of the opposing easterly 
heights between General Stirling and the com- 
bined power of the British army on Long 
Island. 

On the morning of the 27th of August, Gen- 
eral Washington had hurried to Brooklyn 
Heights "two well-drilled Pennsylvania and 
Massachusetts regiments." Later, others from 
New York were added. 

"Along the space of ground that intervened 
between the line of entrenchments and the 
East River, several detachments, from the 
army in New York, were hastening to defend 
the passage of the creek, and to effect a diver- 
sion in favor of the broken troops, by threat- 
ening an attack. Washington had early in 
the day exerted himself to the utmost in bring- 
ing over troops from New York to reinforce 
Sullivan and Stirling; and now that their 

97 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

forces were utterly crushed, he still strove to 
cover the retreat of the fugitives, and to 
strengthen his lines." 

Fort Box w^as immediately to the west of 
the mill-ponds, and commanded the Porte 
Road v^hich ran dov^n from Prospect Heights 
between them. At this point Washington was 
stationed during the battle between Stirling 
and the British at the Stone House. Field 
says: 

"Washington visited the defences at this 
point (mill-ponds) during the day (27th) and 
while giving orders to the Colonel in com- 
mand, a man who seemed to be a citizen of the 
Island, was observed to have become inextric- 
ably fastened in the mud of the pond, while 
fleeing from the enemy. Some of the soldiers 
were desirous of going to his aid, but Wash- 
ington ordered them back, saying that their 
effort would be unavailing, for they would be 
unable to extricate themselves and would thus 
unavoidably be made prisoners of the enemy." 

The two mills were on either side of the 
same (Porte) road, at some little distance from 
each other. This Porte Road was much used 
by Flatbush farmers, who preferred going by 
Gowanus and a much more hilly road to the 
ferry, than by paying toll the other and nearer 

98 



THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 

way. The Porte Road was the second road 
established from the ferry to Flatbush, it cross- 
ing the creek at the mills, and winding up to 
the opposite, or Bergen Hill, thence following 
the present direction of Smith Street to the 
ferry. 

Regarding the number of American troops 
on Long Island at this date, the "Memoirs of 
the Long Island Historical Society" says: 

"It is very difficult to form a satisfactory 
estimate of the number of the American troops 
on Long Island, on this and the subsequent 
days. Washington, in his letter to Congress, 
written on the 26th, says: 'The shifting and 
changing which the regiments have undergone 
of late has prevented their making proper 
returns, and the courts put it out of my power 
to transmit a general one of the army.' The 
whole number of American troops which 
crossed to Long Island at various times, before 
and after the battle, has been estimated from 
nine to eleven thousand; but the difficulty of 
estimating the strength of the force opposed 
to the British is greatly increased by the man- 
ner in which Washington rated his troops. 
In some of his letters which mentioned num- 
bers it is evident that he referred only to the 
regulars, entirely disregarding the militia. 

99 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

During the battle, also, and on the subsequent 
days, troops were crossed in regiments, bat- 
talions, companies, and even in organized 
squads, which in the hurry and confusion were 
hardly even enrolled. At this time, however, 
the whole American force was probably not 
greater than five thousand five hundred men." 

Regarding Stirling's troops, the same au- 
thority writes: 

"Atlee's Pennsylvania and Smallwood's 
Maryland regiment, with Col. Haslett's Dela- 
ware battalion, composed the column with 
Lord Stirling. Cols. Smallwood and Haslett 
had been detained in the city on the night of 
the 26th, being engaged in official duty at the 
court-martial then sitting for the trial of 
Lieut.-Col. Zedwitz. At the rising of the court 
it was too late, as Col. Smallwood asserts, for 
crossing the East River to Brooklyn; but 
pushing over early next morning they joined 
their regiments on the field of battle, while 
these were warmly engaged in repelling the 
first attack." 

The following clear account of what hap- 
pened within the radius shown in the frontis- 
piece, is from the same excellent authority as 
the above: 

"Although the mortality of the day is 
100 



THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 

largely attributed to the dangerous bog and 
water of Gowanus Creek and its ponds, yet, 
when it is remembered that the battery which 
Cornwallis had placed at the Vechte House 
was now pouring its discharge of grape and 
canister upon every point of the crossing, it 
is not hard to believe that most of those who 
fell in the creek perished from these missiles 
rather than by drowning. The brave fellows 
who had toiled so painfully in dragging the 
twelve pounder through the sand were now 
amply rewarded by the splendid results of 
its firing. After almost superhuman exertions 
in bringing their heavy piece into position, 
they opened fire upon Cornwallis' battery, at 
the Stone House, and in a few minutes had 
the satisfaction of putting it out of range. . . . 
The British field pieces were probably light 
four and six pounders, and unable to endure 
the heavy shot and accurate firing of the little 
band of artillerists, so that although these ar- 
rived too late in the day to aid in repelling 
the attack of the British columns on Stirling, 
or to assist his devoted corps of Marylanders 
in their assaults on the Vechte House, they 
actually accomplished the result which that 
General designed, in driving the enemy's bat- 
tery from the post." 

lOI 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

Of these same troops, Field says : "The Bat- 
talion was one of the few uniformed and well- 
disciplined organizations in the American 
Army, and was at once relied upon by General 
Washington for performing the most hazard- 
ous and important duties." Regarding their 
part in the battle at the Stone House, the same 
author states: 

"So fierce and persistent was the onset of 
the Battalion that the British were driven in 
confusion from their battery at the Stone 
House on the Gowanus Road. The guns would 
have been spiked or turned upon the enemy 
but for the brave fire of the grenadiers, who 
had flung themselves into the house, the strong 
walls of which made it a formidable redoubt. 

"For more than an hour the Battalion had 
maintained the terrible fire concentrating 
upon them, and five times assaulted an enemy 
more than twenty times their strength. Shat- 
tered at every charge upon their impregnable 
lines, their discipline, their ardor, and their 
heroism restored their regimental order at 
every repulse." 

Now, "beneath the streets and vacant lots 
lie the remainder of these brave sons of Mary- 
land." 

According to Field, "The officers (of the 

I02 



THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 

American army) give Lord Stirling the char- 
acter of as brave a man as ever lived." 

The following British account of the ac- 
tion at Gowanus — written, in fact, by General 
Howe himself — gives accurate data of their 
own movements; at the same time, their ex- 
planation of why they did not hold the Stone 
House at the critical period, is highly inter- 
esting as well as amusing. This, indeed, was 
the one point of victory for the Americans, 
though it was admirably backed by General 
Stirling's encounter with Grant at Greenwood. 

"About midnight he (Grant) fell in with 
their (Americans') advanced parties, and at 
daybreak with a large corps, having cannon, 
and advantageously posted, with whom there 
was a skirmishing and cannonade for some 
hours, until by the firing at Brooklyn the 
rebels, suspecting their retreat would be cut 
ofif, made a movement to their right in order 
to secure it across a swamp and creek that 
covered the right of their works." 

At the point farthest north on the march of 
the British army to Gowanus, at two o'clock 
of the morning of the fateful 27th of August, 
there occurred the scene at the "Rising Sun 
Tavern" between William Howard, its pro- 
prietor, on the one hand, and Generals Howe, 

103 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

Percy, Cornwallis, and Clinton, on the other. 
This point is marked by the junction of the 
roads on the "Woody Heights." The British 
generals were seeking a guide for the advance 
from this point over the path or "pass" in these 
same "Woody Heights" to Bedford, in their 
march to Gowanus. At the butts of their 
pistols, Howard was forced to conduct them 
along the unguarded pass, and thus made pos- 
sible their descent upon Stirling's forces be- 
tween the mill-ponds and the Stone House. 

Some of Cornwallis's forces had traversed 
the pass from Flatbush to Bedford over Pros- 
pect Range, and these Cornwallis later joined, 
and with them made the first attack upon 
Stirling's redoubt. 

Some authorities give Sullivan, and some 
Stirling, the entire command without the lines 
at Brooklyn. The probabilities are that each 
was in charge of his particular territory — Sul- 
livan to the east and north, Stirling to the 
south and west. Putnam, who on the 27th 
was in charge of Brooklyn Heights, gave 
very little account of himself during the battle. 
His ignorance of matters, owing probably to 
his recent command, furnishes what excuse 
there was. 

General Sullivan's position is clearly repre- 
104 



THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 

sented on the war map as facing, from Pros- 
pect Heights, the British before him at Flat- 
bush. From this point, the march of the 
victorious British straight down the old 
Porte Road to the Stone House, is clearly- 
indicated. So, from west, from north, from 
south, came the entire British forces upon the 
home of old Claes Vechte. 

Perhaps the memories of that day drove the 
last Nicholas of whom we have any knowl- 
edge away from Gowanus and the home of his 
ancestors. For what was left for him? — A 
riddled hearth, a blood-soaked field, pictures 
of brave, fighting, fleeing, wounded, dying 
men. Some other home he sought. And when 
the years of the war passed, when fresh young 
leaves pierced the sod, when the dead were 
buried, and nature had thrown its mantle of 
peace over the scene of strife, others came to 
occupy the brave old house — eyes which had 
not witnessed the fearful struggle without, nor 
the demolishment within. And again, the 
house, the orchard and wood at the back, the 
garden at the side, the meadows before, the 
creek and bay in the distance, became the 
scenes of domesticity. But the word of the 
strife would never pass — not even when walls 
were buried like the very soldiers who fell 

105 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

around them, nor when green fields became 
streets for city feet to tread. The old Stone 
House at Gowanus, and its fields and creek, 
have become history. 

A little below the mill-ponds, in the creek, 
there was the island mentioned by the Laba- 
dists during their visit to Gowanus. Upon 
this island, situated about at Second Street 
near the present canal, a great many of the 
Revolutionary unknown heroes were buried. 
This occurred both immediately after the 
battle — when the residents of Gowanus were 
compelled to bury the dead that lay upon their 
lands — and during the succeeding years when 
the plows of the farmers upturned the 
bones that lay as near the surface of 
the ground as their furrows. This bury- 
ing place has never been disturbed; only 
the surrounding area has been filled, and 
undoubtedly the surface of the spot itself 
raised several feet. Here, therefore, lie most 
of the bones of the brave young Marylanders 
who gave their lives at the Stone House that 
their fellow-soldiers might find safety. It was 
of these soldiers that, "on the i6th of August, 
the Maryland Council of Safety announced 
to our delegates in Congress, 'We shall have 
with you in a few days four thousand men, 

io6 



THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 

which is all that we can arm and equip, and 
the people of New York, for whom we have 
great affection, can have no more than our 
all.' " 

General Stirling could not bring himself, 
when all was over, to surrender to the British 
Commander, and went back through the 
woods till he found the Hessian general, De 
Heister. He was then taken aboard a man- 
of-war, where Sullivan was already a prisoner. 
Of the numbers of Sullivan's men who were 
taken the same day, history has often spoken ; 
on the site of Fort Putnam — later converted 
into a park called Washington Park — a monu- 
ment has been erected to those who died while 
prisoners on the ships in the harbor. It has 
been called the Martyrs' Monument. 



107 



CHAPTER SEVEN GEN. WASHINGTON 
RETREAT FROM LONG ISLAND 

WHY there was not an attack by the 
British navy at this moment remains 
one of the mysteries of the war; for 
Manhattan, comparatively defenseless from 
its low position at the southern end, must have 
fallen an easy victim to the British ships, and 
this would have completely cut off any avenue 
of retreat for the Americans from Brooklyn. 
However, the presence of the American 
troops which were hurried over from New 
York, and who helped to cover the retreat of 
Stirling's soldiers across the meadows, to- 
gether with the presence of the chief himself, 
undoubtedly heartened the soldiers within the 
Brooklyn lines. (See Notes.) 

That night, on Prospect Range, and on the 
lowlands before the American lines, the Brit- 
ish slept. They were happy in the conscious- 
ness of victory, and no doubt believed that 
another day would see the beginning of a 
siege of Brooklyn Heights which would ulti- 
mately prove successful to royal arms. They 

109 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

were tired with a day of battle after a long 
night of marching — so tired that one night's 
rest was probably insufficient to inspire a 
desire for further action. Added to this, with 
daybreak, a fog which enveloped everything 
was discovered to have made its way up the 
bay, so that the now nearby line of American 
fortifications was invisible. Further activity 
was therefore delayed by the British. 

Lord Howe thought this delay advantage- 
ous ; it would give his soldiers time for 
further rest. But Washington took no rest. 
He went to and fro, conferring with his gen- 
erals, examining his own and the enemy's 
position, and speculating upon the advisability 
of this or that course of action. 

It was no part of Washington's plan to 
allow himself to be hemmed in on the Heights 
of Brooklyn with the enemy around by water 
and land. With another day of fog, his 
preparations were completed. He had sent 
orders to Manhattan for every available craft 
to be centered in the East River, extending 
from about the point of the present Brooklyn 
Bridge terminal to Wallabout Bay — that sec- 
tion where the river was narrowest and best 
out of reach of the British ships. Yet, so 
close were these ships, and so near the British 

no 




BRONZE TABLET^ FOUR AND ONE-HALF BY FIVE FEET^ ATTACHED TO 
THE BRICK HOUSE AT THE CORNER OF FIFTH AVENUE AND THIRD 
STREET, BROOKLYN, IN MEMORY OF THE OLD STONE HOUSE, CALLED 
THE CORTELYOU HOUSE WHILE OCCUPIED BY THE FAMILY OF 
JAQUES CORTELYOU. 



'we SHALL HAVE WITH YOU IN A FEW DAYS FOUR THOUSAND MEN. 
WHICH IS ALL THAT WE CAN ARM AND EQUIP, AND THE PEOPLE OF 
NEW YORK, FOR WHOM WE HAVE GREAT AFFECTION, CAN HAVE NO 

MORE THAN OUR ALL." MARYLAND COUNCIL OF SAFETY TO THE 

NEW YORK DELEGATES IN CONGRESS, AUGUST 1 6, 1 776, CONCERNING 
THE MARYLAND TROOPS WHO FOUGHT AT THE STONE HOUSE. 



RETREAT FROM LONG ISLAND 

camp, that it seems almost impossible such an 
array of river craft could have been gotten to- 
gether without the enemy's notice; this, too, 
where there was plenty of Tory sympathy, and 
numerous feet willing to run on errands of 
warning to the British. It speaks well for the 
guarding of the American lines, and the quick 
action and manceuvering of the chief, that on 
the morning of the 30th, with the fog's lifting, 
the British awoke to find their supposedly 
caged birds flown. The Heights of Brooklyn 
were deserted, and the Americans safely across 
the East River. 

The British had lost a supreme chance, and 
Washington's untiring activity was rewarded. 
On the 3rd of September following, he writes 
to Congress: 

"Since Monday scarce any of us have been 
out of the lines till our passage across the East 
River was effected. Yesterday morning and 
for forty-eight hours preceding that, I had 
hardly been off my horse, and never closed my 
eyes." 

And not only were the Americans not sat- 
isfied with getting themselves and their effects 
from under the very noses of the British, but 
once on Manhattan Island they proceeded to 
Governor's Island — in Colonial times called 

113 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

Nutten, and even later, Nut Island — which 
was but a quarter-mile from the Long Island 
shore, and three-quarters from Manhattan. 
This island is now the headquarters of the 
Department of the East, and is so close to 
the Long Island shore that, according to 
tradition, at one time it was possible at low 
tide to walk on dry land from one shore to 
the other. This island had been well gar- 
risoned, and it was not the Americans' plan 
to leave so valuable an equipment behind; so 
having landed safely at New York, they went 
over and, according to the loyalists' own his- 
torian, Jones, who complained bitterly of the 
British laxity at this time, they carried away 
"two thousand men, forty pieces of heavy can- 
non, military stores, and provisions in 
abundance." 



114 



CHAPTER EIGHT THE LOYALISTS 

BRITISH ON LONG ISLAND 

BRITISH troops were now in possession 
of the works so zealously pushed by 
General Lee and Lord Stirling. Over 
Prospect Range, across the lowlands, their 
tents swarmed. British officers occupied the 
Stone House and the farmhouses of the dis- 
trict; and up on Brooklyn Heights the forts 
of the Americans became the forts of the 
British. To the loyalists, this would seem a 
promise of better things and, no doubt, for a 
time they so considered it. But not long. 
Of the British occupation their own historian, 
Jones, previously quoted, writes: 

"This day, though then looked upon as the 
most fortunate one that could happen for the 
Long Island loyalists, proved in the end a 
most unfortunate one, for instead of finding 
protectors in the King's troops, they were most 
scandalously, barbarously and indiscrimin- 
ately plundered; suflFered every insult and 
abuse during the whole war." He complains 
117 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

that they, the inhabitants, "were well paid for 
their loyalty." 

As to General Stirling, it is pleasant to state 
that he was soon exchanged, and was enter- 
tained by General Washington at the latter's 
headquarters at Harlem — now Washington 
Heights — on Manhattan. In an original 
manuscript letter in possession of the Lenox 
Library, and dated Morristown, March 3, 
1776, General Stirling writes: 

"At Long Island I lost two valuable horses, 
and all my Baggage, and in consequence of 
my captivation there, I was plundered and 
lost about five hundred pounds' worth of 
furniture." 

A curious document of the months im- 
mediately following the evacuation of Long 
Island by Washington, and printed in 
New York by Rivington, chief printer 
and publisher of the time, throws con- 
siderable light upon points of locality. It 
is dated 1776, and is a farce purporting to set 
forth circumstances connected with the Battle 
of Long Island. Written as it was to ridicule, 
by enemies of the Republic, truth of char- 
acter is absolutely wanting, its place being 
taken by gross falsehood. Yet facts of loca- 
tion were necessary to give semblance of life 

118 



BRITISH ON LONG ISLAND 

to even this fiction, and for such it may be 
legitimately drawn upon. As to certain dia- 
logue relating to the plunder of the natives 
by the soldiers, it is both curious and amusing 
to notice that the vs^riter attributed to the 
Americans exactly the behavior which their 
Tory historian, Jones, recorded as their own. 
Witness the following: 

SCENE: A Small House in a Field. 

Enter LASHER and CLARK. 

Clark. Behold, Colonel, these flocks and herds; with 
the sword of Gideon have I made them mine; and hon- 
estly collected them, in the district allotted to me by our 
agreement. 

Lasher. I rejoice with you in the acquisition. My 
harvest from the Wallabout is like the miraculous 
draught: — two hundred and seven head of horned beasts, 
and thirty-seven horses, graze where my guards direct. 

Clark. Favor has not been so amply manifested unto 
me; for from the farthest verge of Gowanus, even from 
Casper's house, till you come to Brewer's mills, one hun- 
dred and nine horned, and twenty beasts of burthern were 
all I could collect. 

Lasher. But for some twenty head of cattle, the glean- 
ings of Gowanus in the orchard of one Bergen, (see house 
on road to right, in frontispiece) I would not go so far; 
these once obtained, we will be near each other. 

Regarding the above, it is a fact that with 
the advance of the British upon the southern 
shore of Long Island, and their subsequent 
occupation of the entire plain between the 

119 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 



sea and Prospect Range, the natives and 
soldiers drove the live stock of this district 
within the American picket lines, so that im- 
mense herds ranged over the hills and plains 
of Gowanus. 

ACT i:. 

SCENE: A Hill at Gowanus about two miles from 
Brooklyn lines, with an encampment on it. 
TIME: About three o'clock in the morning. 
Enter a SOLDIER. 

Sol. Where's General Stirling? . . . Sir, it is I that 
call, to inform your lordship, there has been a great deal 
of shooting toward the Red Lion within this little while. 

SCENE : A hill with troops drawn up, under arms. 

TIME: Broad day-light. 

Enter SULLIVAN and STIRLING. 

Sul. Let your brigade immediately take post in the 
bottom, and extend from the small house below, (see 
frontispiece) as far as the STONE HOUSE upon the 
left: and farther, if the hill gives them cover. 

SCENE. FORT GREENE in BROOKLYN. (In 
frontispiece, hill showing to the left of the house.) 

LINES. Centinel on one of the Merlins, looking out. 
Enter WASHINGTON. 

Wash. What do you so earnestly look at, Centry? 

Cen. Look this way, Sir; there they run like many 
deer, and will get in: but the poor souls yonder, that 
come across the meadows, and attempt to cross the mill 
creek. Oh, what a number of these stick in the mud. 

Of course, the entire document, as pointed 
out, is a mass of fabrication as far as char- 

120 



BRITISH ON LONG ISLAND 

acter delineation is concerned; and the lines 
quoted are but to bring home more forcibly 
the "local color" and points of locality, which 
this literary effort of the day succeeds in 
doing despite its serious objectionableness as 
history. 

With the further movements of the Revo- 
lution, this book has little to do. The scene 
changes, while interest remains with the 
Stone House, with Gowanus, and the distant 
Heights of Brooklyn. The British held pos- 
session of this region till the close of the war. 
With their evacuation went also many of the 
loyalists of the district — one historian stating 
that a third of the whole population of Brook- 
lyn went to Nova Scotia — so that present day 
Brooklyn descendants of the time represent 
those families who remained true to the Amer- 
ican cause. 



FACSIMILE OF THE SIGNATURE OF NICHOLAS 
VECHTE, FROM THE " HISTORY OF THE 
BERGEN FAMILY," BY TEUNIS BERGEN. 



121 



CHAPTER NINE THE STONE HOUSE 
AFTE R THE REVOLUTION 

IN 1790, Nicholas Vechte sold the Go- 
wanus estate on which stood the Stone 
House to Jaques Cortelyou for $12,500. 
From this period on, the house was known 
either as the Stone House, or the Washington 
House— from Washington's presence there 
previous to the battle, in consequence of 
which it was often referred to as Washington's 
Headquarters on Long Island, the picture of 
the house frequently being so designated. 

Jaques Cortelyou was direct in descent from 
Jaques Cortelyou, the original owner of the 
first stone house at New Utrecht— the same 
house that was occupied by General Howe 
upon the British landing at New Utrecht, and 
which later became a part of Fort Hamilton, 
on the Narrows, and was included in the bar- 
racks up to modern times. (Large Map.) 

The Cortelyou House at New Utrecht was 
visited by the previously mentioned Labadist 
travelers in 1679, though as early as 1665, 
records have it that "Jaques Cortelleau, 

123 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

younger hope," lived at New Utrecht. They 
state that the house of Jaques Cortelleau was 
the second one built by the owner, the first hav- 
ing been destroyed by fire ; and in this they are 
confirmed by contemporary records, which 
add that the inhabitants of the surrounding re- 
gion were asked to contribute a day's labor 
toward the erection of Jaques Cortelleau's new 
house, he having been grievously afflicted by 
fire. 

Evidently, the second house was intended to 
withstand both fire and time, as it was of the 
same strength and durability as the Stone 
House at Gowanus, bought by Jaques' de- 
scendant of the same name, surviving from the 
Seventeenth till the last half of the Nineteenth 
Century. (See Notes.) 

The Labadists became great friends of 
Jaques Cortelyou, whom they describe at that 
time as quite an old man. They made several 
visits to his home, and at one time thought 
of buying from him a tract of land owned by 
himself and "several partners" on the Passaic 
River in New Jersey. Of one of these visits 
to him, starting from New York, they write: 

"We both left about noon to go over to 
Long Island, and passed through Breucklen 
and Vlacke Bos (Flatbush, thus taking a dif- 

124 




AFTER THE REVOLUTION 

ferent route from previous ones by Gowanus) 
over New Utrecht on a large, fine wagon 
road to Najack (the part of New Utrecht 
occupied by the Nyack Indians, upon 
whose land Jaques Cortelyou had built), 
where we arrived about three o'clock. It had 
been very warm through the day, and we 
were all in perspiration and fatigued. After 
we had rested and eaten something, we went 
outside upon the banks of this beautiful bay, 
to breathe a little air, and look at several 
vessels going and coming." Jaques "had been 
to the fish fuyck, which they had lying there 
upon the shore and out of which they had 
taken at noon some fine fish. . . . The day be- 
fore he had shot a woodcock and partridge 
before the door of the House." 

At the time of the Labadists' visit, Cortelyou 
was paying the Indians twenty bushels of 
corn a year as rent for his land. He is spoken 
of by writers of his time as a "mathamatician, 
a sworn land surveyor, and a doctor of medi- 
cine." He enjoyed the position of "ofiicial 
surveyor" to New Amsterdam, and he it was 
who, in 1653, made that map of New Amster- 
dam ordered by the Governor, which present 
generations long searched for. 

The office of surveyor descended in the 
125 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 



family; in 1704 Peter Cortelyou was one of 
three men appointed to lay out the King's 
Highway, later Fulton Street, Brooklyn. 

The bronze tablet, placed by the Sons of the 
Revolution on the house now standing on the 
southwest corner of Third Street and Fifth 
Avenue, bears the following inscription : 

"The site of the old Cortelyou , i 
House on the Battlefield of 
Long Island. Here on the 27TH 
OF August, 1776 — two hundred 

AND FIFTY OUT OF FOUR HUNDRED 

BRAVE Maryland soldiers under 

THE command of LORD STIRLING 
WERE KILLED IN COMBAT WITH BRIT- 
ISH TROOPS UNDER CORNWALLIS." 

Above the inscription there is etched an 
imaginary picture of the conflict. The house 
is represented close at hand, two stories and 
a half in height and situated just at the rise 
of a hill. 

As a matter of fact, this should not be called 
the Cortelyou House of history, the latter, as 
explained above, having been situated at New 
Utrecht; moreover, the house represented 
and thus honored in the tablet — the Stone 
126 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 

House of Gowanus — was not on the site 
of the brick dwelling to which the tablet is 
attached. The famous house stood some one 
hundred feet to the rear or west of the present 
edifice, and about fifty to the left or south. 
The southwest corner of the house was nearly 
coincident with the old willow tree which still 
stands on the property. As a young tree, this 
willow appears in certain of the later sketches 
of the house which were used as illustrations 
to histories, and which are subsequently de- 
scribed in detail in this chapter. 

At the time of its final destruction, some 
twelve years previous to this writing, the 
house occupied a corner of what was the 
Washington Park — so-named from the house 
— Baseball Grounds, and was used by the 
players as a club house. The wooden addi- 
tion to the rear was the part mainly used by 
the boys, and according to Mr. John Moore, a 
resident of the locality since the fifties, they 
gained entrance by jumping down through 
door or windows. 

As the house, in history, was always de- 
scribed as two stories and a half, it became a 
current fallacy of later days that the original 
roof had disappeared, and with it one of the 
stories. But this. is inconsistent with the fact 

127 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

that the house retained to the end its original 
gable with the date, 1699, affixed to it. 

Referring to the frontispiece of this volume^ 
it is to be noted that the wooden addition 
spoken of by Mr. Moore is not only well above 
ground, but has a foundation ample in height. 
To have made it necessary to "jump down" 
through door or windows in order to gain en- 
trance, the house must have been buried to a 
point above the pictured or original doorsill, 
thus reducing the visible portion of the 
house to a story and a half; and that this was 
the case is practically assured from the fact 
that the slope shown in the painting at the back 
of the house had even then long since vanished 
— the undulating wooded hills of this slope 
having given place to the gradual, even 
descent from the park to-day. 

Mr. Litchfield, whose grandfather bought 
the property from the Cortelyous in 1846 and 
extended Third Street across the lowlands, 
states that the street was sixteen feet above 
the level of the meadows ; so that the original 
ground level of the Stone House would 
thus have been sixteen feet below the present 
surface — confirming eye-witnesses that the 
house appeared as though "in a hollow" even 
after having been buried to its second story. 

128 




THE OLD WILLOW TREE, WHICH STOOD NEAR THE DOOR OF THE STONE 
HOUSE AS IT LOOKS TO-DAY. IT IS SHOWN AS A SAPLING, REACHING 
ABOUT THE EAVES, IN THE TWO PRINTS AND THE LITHOGRAPH ELSE- 
WHERE REPRODUCED. 



"beneath THESE STREETS AND VACANT LOTS LIE THE REMAINDER 
OF THOSE BRAVE SONS OF MARYLAND." — FIELD. 




SECTION OF THE TRUNK OF THE OLD WILLOW TREE WHICH 
STOOD NEAR THE DOOR OF THE STONE HOUSE, SHOWING 
PRESENT AGE AND CONDITION. 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 

With the building of Third Street across 
the meadows, and the consequent filling-in of 
the meadows themselves, there also became 
lost to view the spring, and the brook which 
flowed from it to the creek — shown plainly on 
the farther side of the road in the frontispiece. 
Mr. Moore states that the spring is still bub- 
bling beneath the ground, and that the stream 
yet finds its way to the canal but a few feet 
below the surface. 

Also, when the upper house was finally 
<iemolished, the stones which composed it were 
thrown in to make filling, so that there remains 
to-day beneath the turf of this historic area, 
not only the spring and brook, but the founda- 
tion and lower floor of the house intact, and 
practically the entire material of the second 
floor and gable. 

The brass figures upon the gable-ends re- 
mained to the last. They were over two feet 
in height, their supports penetrated the walls, 
and were firmly riveted on the inside. These 
were removed at the time of general destruc- 
tion, and are probably in the possession of 
some person in Brooklyn. 

Under its various names — the Vechte-Cor- 
telyou House, the Washington House, the 
Stone House at Gowanus, Washington's Head- 

133 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

quarters, Stirling's Headquarters, Cornwallis's 
Redoubt; and with such captions as "Scene on 
the Gowanus Road," "The Oldest House in 
Brooklyn," or "Stirling's Last Stand at the 
Stone House," together with several presenta- 
tions as an example of Colonial Dutch archi- 
tecture merely — the house itself has figured 
largely in book illustration. The best known 
example is undoubtedly that in the Valentine 
Manual for 1858. This is an illustration of 
ordinary book-size, showing the front angle 
of the house. It is the only Brooklyn or Long 
Island edifice of any sort reproduced in the 
Manuals. 

It is interesting to note that the same point 
of view, to a hair's breadth, is taken in the 
drawing of the Valentine Manual as in the 
picture of the house forming the frontispiece 
to Henry R. Stiles' "History of the City of 
Brooklyn." A certain post in the enclosing 
fence is depicted as exactly in line with the 
angle of the southwest, or right-hand, corner 
of the house. This is true also of the large 
full-page illustration in the Emmet Collec- 
tion, which is styled, "Sketch on the Gowanus 
Road," with the sub-title, "Washington's 
Headquarters." In fact, these three illustra- 
tions are identical as far as the point of view 

134 



AFTER THE REVOLUTION 

and general delineation is concerned, leading 
to the conclusion that they were drawn from 
one and the same pictorial source, a few slight 
changes alone being introduced as suggestions 
of originality. For example, the frontis- 
piece to Stiles shows the brook and a sunken 
barrel at the spring in the immediate fore- 
ground, with two young girls romantically 
near. In Emmet, the girls and the brook are 
omitted, there remaining only the barrel. In 
Valentine, neither the girls, the brook, nor 
the spring appear, the foreground being short- 
ened at this point. A young willow tree near 
the door appears in both Stiles and Valentine. 
Undoubtedly, these slight changes or additions 
were often in accordance with facts of the time 
of the respective prints. 

The young willow tree near the door of 
the house in Valentine and Stiles' frontis- 
piece is topographically valuable, showing, as 
it does, its exact position with reference to the 
house ; for this tree — now old, gnarled, but in 
season still garlanded with green — yet stands 
on the vacant plot beneath which lie con- 
cealed the remains of the Stone House. 



135 



CHAPTER TEN LATER DAYS 

PRESENT SCENE OF THE BATTLE 

FROM the village of something less than 
four thousand inhabitants during the 
Revolutionary War, Brooklyn ad- 
vanced to the dignity of a town in 
1816, and to that of a city in 1834, 
when its population registered 23,310. 
Having become a city, the idea of a City Hall 
was broached, and in the same year — 1834 — 
a triangular lot of land at a purchase price of 
$52,909 was secured. At the time, this piece 
of land was practically on the outskirts of the 
city. The corner stone was laid in 1836, and 
work begun; but this was afterward stopped, 
owing to "hard times." When, in 1848, the 
work on the City Hall was completed, the 
population had almost doubled, being regis- 
tered as 90,000; and in two successive years, 
from 1848 to 1850, twenty-one hundred build- 
ings were erected in the city, many of these 
extending southward, along what is now Court 
Street, edging but slightly, however, toward 
the lowlands, so that the amphitheatre of 

137 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

Revolutionary action remained practically as 
before. 

But a change was imminent. Already, in 
1846, a plan had been broached for the con- 
struction of a canal at Gowanus — this, in a 
measure, to follow the bed of Gowanus Creek, 
but to confine the waters within exact limits, 
and to deepen the bed so as to drain the sur- 
rounding area. According to record, the canal 
was to be "five feet below low water mark, 
four feet above high water mark, one hundred 
feet in width, and a mile in length." The same 
report stated that the "purpose of the canal 
was to drain some 17 acres of land" at Go- 
wanus, almost the area of the mill-ponds. This 
was also the size of the plot of vacant ground 
connected with the Stone House, and for a 
time, as previously stated, occupied by the 
Brooklyn Baseball Club. It is that part of 
the Stone House property which extended 
below the wooded slope and comprised the 
meadow lands. In the same year it was pro- 
posed to appropriate the historic seventeen 
acres for a public park. Had this been done 
the Stone House, with all its moving and pic- 
turesque memories, would have been saved for 
us of the present generation, and those who 
come after. 

138 



PRESENT SCENE OF THE BATTLE 

The ten years between 1840 and 1850 really 
marked the commencement of the new or 
present city of Brooklyn. Plans for parks, for 
public institutions, for new roads, were begun, 
and in the main vigorously pushed. The 
"new" was the keynote of the time, and as is. 
usual in such cases, the old was forgotten — • 
built upon, passed over, and the loss considered 
but a necessary factor in the sweep of progress. 
It was not until later, when a sense of comple- 
tion — more or less — of wealth, of culture, of 
leisure in certain directions, had settled upon 
the still growing community, that minds went 
back to that part of the historic past which 
had been swept away. With the planning of 
the Gowanus Canal, thoughts reverted to the 
part played by the region traversed by the his- 
toric creek, the meadows around, and the 
slopes on either hand. The central point of 
all, the Stone House, became the centre of 
interest, and it was at this time that the propo- 
sition was entertained to make the place a park 
and to preserve the historic house. 

While this subject was so vitally in the air, 
the picture referred to so often in the progress 
of this story of Gowanus, was painted. This 
was in the year 1846, while plans for the canal 
were being considered, and before work had 

139 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOV/ANUS 

begun, so that the old creek still traversed the 
meadows, and on the distant heights of Brook- 
lyn the new City Hall had taken on the dignity 
of a spire or cupola, but within the edifice 
work was still going on. It represents the 
transition between the old and new as, per- 
haps, no other picture in the world anywhere 
represents it; in the lowlands, everything re- 
mained at that moment as it had one hundred 
and fifty years before — in 1699, or 1776; on 
the heights changes were approaching, but the 
slopes were as yet practically unaltered. 

At this momentous hour there happened to 
reside in Brooklyn an artist, Louis Grube, who 
was born in Kerzenheim, Germany. He was 
educated at Manheim, and had come to Amer- 
ica to join a brother who lived at Pough- 
keepsie. He taught drawing and painting in 
the Poughkeepsie Collegiate Institute for a 
short time, and then removed to Brooklyn. He 
was thirty-five years of age, when the agita- 
tion began for the new Gowanus Canal, 
awakening, as it did, memories of the historic 
neighborhood. How splendidly the artist 
embraced these memories, and how perfect 
was his realization of the relation of historic 
Gowanus to the opposing and neighboring 
heights, how truthfully the representation of 

140 



PRESENT SCENE OF THE BATTLE 

the entire scene upon canvas, may be realized 
from history and from geography. One can 
imagine the young artist filled with the en- 
thusiasm of the history of the spot, at the same 
time that he reproduces with his brush the 
scene that lay before him at the moment — the 
still unmutilated, dignified edifice, with its 
lanes, its roads before the door, its stone wall, 
its fence, its shading trees— even its old Dutch 
kitchen, probably later devoted to other uses; 
then the oft-remarked meadows, lush from his 
brush, the brook flowing away to the creek 
which had brought old Nicholas Vechte's 
canoe or flat-bottom nearly to his door. 

Then the scene spreads, and so glowingly 
and truthfully is this distance depicted it must 
speak of the painter's heart as one with his 
plan. There is the road over the slope at the 
right, the old road, with the snug little house 
on the near side — the Michael Bergen place, 
rebuilt by his grandson, Michael Grant, at the 
time of the Revolution, This family gave its 
name to the present Bergen Street, now four 
city blocks north of the head of the Gowanus 
Canal, or the Gowanus Creek, where were 
situated the historic mill-ponds. Still farther 
rises the uncompleted spire of the City Hall, 
and the two church steeples that were standing 

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143 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

at that time. In the course of a few years after 
this painting, the entire area represented about 
the City Hall changed, the old hill upon 
which it stood being lowered so that a new 
first story to the City Hall, including the 
sweep of steps to the main entrance, was added. 
The differing color of the steps and first story 
to-day tells the extent to which the hill was 
lowered. After this change, the appearance of 
the locality altered rapidly; the old, low build- 
ings shown around the City Hall in the paint- 
ing gave place to new and higher ones; in 
time, these rose to such a height that the City 
Hall was entirely obscured from Gowanus. 

Curiously, the area about the City Hall was 
lowered approximately the same number of 
feet that the area about the Stone House was 
raised. In consequence, one must climb the 
grandstand of the present baseball club at 
Third Street and Fourth Avenue — site of 
the lower mill-pond — or the elevated railroad 
at Fifth Avenue and Third Street, to obtain 
an idea of the relative position of the two areas 
as they were one hundred, or two hundred, 
years ago. The high buildings about the City 
Hall make up somewhat to the distant observer 
for the loss in height of the hill itself. 

The lane at the picture's left lower corner in- 
144 



PRESENT S CENE OF THE BATTLE 

dicates perfectly the position of the present 
Fifth Avenue, and if in imagination continued 
to the right, will show with exactitude where a 
decade after the picture's execution, tifth 
Avenue was cut through the hill adjoining the 
house at the rear. 

With the new roads came new houses, i ne 
new houses must of necessity be on the new 
grade of the new streets. The present brick- 
house of the tablet on Fifth Avenue was to 
occupy the exact spot indicated by the right- 
hand wooded rise in the painting. It came 
down, this rise-shovelful by shovelful-each 
one thrown forward to create the mound 
which banked around the Stone House to the 
second floor, and sloped in exact decline to the 
meadows, the fresh greenness of which hence 
became a monotonous stretch of desolate new- 
laid soil. ^ , 
From this last state, the ball club came and 
reclaimed it, for the pleasant green sod, the 
well-kept surroundings of a prominent ball 
club were much pleasanter to the sight than 
the preceding desolation. Now, since the re- 
moval of the club, the land is once more deso- 
late, and the house gone. So we are to thank 
Mr Grube for the preservation to us of the 
scene as it was before the vandalism of a great 

145 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

city's advance had annihilated its natural 
charm and hidden its historic features. 

Louis Grube lived for many succeeding 
years in Brooklyn — painting in his studio in 
the old Athenaeum Building, and teaching art 
in the famous Lockwood Academy. He ex- 
hibited his paintings at the current exhibitions, 
and one, entitled "Butterflies" — is now in the 
Brooklyn Institute Museum. So far as is 
known the painting in question is the only 
historic painting of Brooklyn he undertook, 
and this fact is not difficult to understand when 
we realize the scope of the scene under dis- 
cussion ; for he had here a subject which took 
with its swing practically all that was of vivid 
or thrilling interest in the battle of Long 
Island, also the most noted example of 
early Colonial Dutch architecture in the city, 
and a glimpse of that Gowanus where was 
made the first white settlement, where was 
built the first house on the territory now com- 
prising the city of Brooklyn. It represents the 
heart of historic Brooklyn as far as its relation 
to the course of the Revolutionary War and 
the making of the free and independent States 
of America is concerned. As such, it is of na- 
tional interest. And a writer has said of this 
scene: 

146 



PRESENT SCENE OF THE BATTLE 

"The very dust of these streets is sacred. 
And our busy hum of commerce, our grading 
of city lots, our speculations in houses reared 
on the scenes of such noble valor, and over the 
mouldering forms of these young heroes, seems 
almost sacrilege." For here they fell and v^ere 
buried, these "young heroes" who fought with 
Stirling, or who fell in the attempt to cross the 
meadows. (See Notes.) 

Through the fortuitous circumstances pre- 
viously indicated, the plot upon which stood 
the Stone House, and the entire stretch of the 
meadow before it as far as the creek or canal, 
and in width from Third to Sixth Street — is 
still unoccupied, though pressingly sur- 
rounded on all sides by buildings. It would 
yet be possible to uncover the spring and 
brook, and to unearth and set up the Wash- 
ington House, the old Stone House of 
Gowanus. With turfed surface, bordering 
trees, and flowers where once stood the garden, 
this spot might again be made to bloom as 
during Colonial and Revolutionary occu- 
pancy. Washington Park, long its name, 
could be restored to it, and the house serve not 
only as a place of abiding interest itself, but 
as a museum for Colonial and Revolutionary 
relics. The iron figures recording the date of 

147 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

erection — 1699 — are still in existence, and 
might again adorn the gable; also a wooden 
tablet which, within the house, told of Wash- 
ington's presence. This, no doubt, could be 
secured, the house furnished in duplicate of 
the days before the war, and a charming 
monument laid to those pioneers of our history 
who gave their hearths for their nation's need. 
Such museums as the Jumel Mansion on 
Washington Heights, Manhattan, and the Van 
Cortlandt Mansion at Van Cortlandt Park, 
are wonderful revivifiers of the days which 
they represent. How much more so, then, 
this site restored to its original form, repre- 
senting, as it does, not only a homestead of 
earlier interest than either of the above, but 
the scene of a great battle — itself the important 
redoubt; altogether, with surroundings, repre- 
senting an opportunity for historic preserva- 
tion unequalled at the present time in America. 



148 




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COLORED LITHOGRAPH OF THE STOXE HOUSE AT GOWAXUS, BY N. 
CURRIERj FROM THE ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY LOUIS GRUBE REPRO- 
DUCED AS FRONTISPIECE TO THIS BOOK. 



"the oldest BUILDING SUPPOSED TO BE NOW (1834) STANDING IN 
THE TOWN IS SITUATED AT GOWANUS IN THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE 
CITY, OWNED^ FOR SEVERAL GENERATIONS, BY THE CORTELYOU FAM- 
ILY, WHICH WAS DOUBTLESS A VERY FINE SUBSTANTIAL EDIFICE AT 
THE PERIOD OF ITS ERECTION IN 1 699. IT IS A DOUBLE HOUSE, BUILT 
OF STONE, AND WAS OCCUPIED BY THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF 
THE AMERICAN ARMY IN 1 776, A SHORT TIME ANTERIOR TO THE 
BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND." THOMPSON. 




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699 NOTES 1909 



CAROLINE AMELIA CORTELYOU, daughter 
of the last Jaques Cortelyou, and who was herself 
born in the Stone House at Gowanus, married Merwin 
Rushmore of Brooklyn. At the present time, Mrs. Rush- 
more's Colonial home is filled with treasures dating back 
through two centuries and more. Among these are silk 
gowns of antique patterns, beautiful shawls, old Dutch 
Bibles, andirons, lamps, candlesticks, silver ware, copper, 
pewter, quaint mirrors brought from France, a foot- 
warmer, chests of drawers, four-posters, chairs of Shera- 
ton, and one "rush-bottom" of the exact date, 1790, of 
the family's entry into the Stone House. Besides many 
other pieces of antique mahogany, sufficient to completely 
furnish a modern five-story residence, Mrs. Rushmore is 
the happy possessor of a spinet which once adorned the 
parlor of the Stone House. Her manuscripts include let- 
ters relating to affairs of the Cortelyou family for many 
generations, as well as a slave bill made out by her grand- 
father, Jaques Cortelyou. 

According to Mrs. Rushmore, all the bricks used for 
ornamental purposes in the Stone House, and for the fire- 
places and ovens, were brought from Holland. After the 
demolishment of the house, bricks from the fireplace were 
sold by Daughters of the Revolution at a fair in Brooklyn. 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 



II 



AS the mill-ponds were artificial expansions of arms 
of the creek, it is probable that old Nicholas Vechte's 
privilege concerning the water of Denton's Pond in flood- 
ing his private stream had its origin in the fact that the 
pond really extended into his — ^Vechte's — property. The 
eastern boundary of the Vechte farm was at the Porte 
Road, what is now practically First Street; and in all the 
old grants or titles of this region, the boundaries extended 
in a straight line from the wooded heights in the rear, to 
the creek. This would have given Vechte proprietary 
rights upon the land below First Street as far as the 
creek. As the pond, when formed — about two years after 
the building of the Stone House — extended nearly to 
what is now Third Street — in the Frontispiece directly 
hidden by the house, and about the distance away of the 
present Fourth Avenue from Third Avenue — Vechte 
must have granted the use of the portion of his land 
flooded by the mill-pond, or else sold it outright, to his 
neighbor and friend, Adam Brouer. 



Ill 



THE town of New Utrecht extended from the Go- 
wanus line to the southern shore of Long Island, 
hence included the Narrows, where is now Fort Hamil- 
ton, and the village of New Utrecht, some distance inland 
to the east. The Cortelyou House on the Narrows, 
which was occupied by General Howe upon landing, is 
indicated on the accompanying British military map — a 
line being drawn from the house to the village of New 



1699 NOTES 1909 

Utrecht. Architecturally, this house did not compare 
with the Stone House at Gowanus; it was but one story 
and a half in height, but was strongly built of field stone. 



IV 



SOME authorities maintain that the British ships but 
made a feint of attacking New York on the 27th of 
August; others declare that an attack was fully intended 
and in fact begun, but that the ships which were sent up 
New York Bay could get no further than Red Hook 
— the southern point of Brooklyn Peninsula, guarding 
Gowanus Bay — where they were stopped, not only by the 
guns of Red Hook, but by adverse winds, and the out- 
going tide. 



IN "The Life of Lord Stirling," by his grandson, Wil- 
liam Alexander Duer, it is stated that most of the cor- 
respondence which passed between Lord Stirling and 
General Washington is missing. In the preface, the 
writer accounts for this as follows: 

"As the author is well aware that whatever of value or 
interest may attach to his work will be due to the corre- 
spondence it embraces, he cannot forbear expressing his 
regret that a number of the most important letters in the 
original collection are not now to be found. They were 
selected from the mass, and laid aside for greater security ; 
but, as not unfrequently happens in such cases, they were 
lost — perhaps, through the very means intended for their 
preservation. This accident is the more to be lamented. 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

as the letters in question comprised the correspondence 
of . . . General Washington with Lord Stirling, dur- 
ing the revolutionary war." 

The letter — of which the facsimile is presented in this 
book — of General Washington to Lord Stirling, is, there- 
fore, one of the lost letters referred to by Mr. Duer. Dr. 
Robert Watts of New York, the present owner of the 
letter, and who is the grandson of Robert Watts who mar- 
ried Lord Stirling's daughter Mary, informed the writer 
that this particular letter was found in the secret drawer 
of an old desk by a friend of the family, who then turned 
it over to an uncle of Dr. Watts, whence it came to him. 
The letter was written while the American Army was in 
camp near Trenton, and while Lord Stirling was actively 
engaged in military life in New Jersey, performing the 
same kind of hazardous feats of bravery for which he had 
been distinguished even before the Battle of Long Island. 
That Lord Stirling's advice was constantly sought by 
the Commander-in-Chief is evidenced by numerous letters, 
one of which contains the following from Lord Stirling to 
General Washington: 

"In obedience to your Excellency's request in Council 
the 6th instant, I now give you my opinion on the several 
questions stated, viz : That since there is still a very high 
probability of the second division's arriving from France, 
and of our soon having a superior force in these seas, we 
ought to adhere to our original plan for this campaign of 
co-operating with our allies, and with our whole force, 
for the reduction of New York; and then pursuing such 
other objects as the season of the year and the character 
of the seats of operation will permit. By departing from 
this plan, we risk everything; we can then have no other 

156 



i699 NOTES 1909 

objects in view but what lie at a great distance ; and we 
shall have the opportunity of striking the enemy at the 
fountain head, with the highest probability of success, etc." 
This was dated Sept. 9, 1780, at Camp Kanahkumac. 

General Washington followed this advice, acting upon 
it the following May in his advance upon New York as 
far as the Hudson; but the failure of the French part of 
the expedition at this point caused him to withdraw, and 
he then proceeded to Virginia. At this time Lord Stir- 
ling was ordered to Albany to take command of the North- 
ern Division, as an invasion from Canada was then feared. 

Stirling's modesty where his own ability and bravery 
were concerned is shown in his answer to the compliment 
paid him by General Stark, whose letter ran as fol- 
lows: "I . . . am very happy that an officer of your 
influence and military experience has been appointed to 
this critical and important command." To which he re- 
plied: "Your friendly observations upon my abilities 
rather paint me the person I wish to be, than the one I 
sincerely think I am." 

Upon the capitulation of Stirling's old foe at the Stone 
House — Lord Cornwallis — to General Washington, Stir- 
ling wrote to Washington as follows: "Rhynbeck, No- 
vember 26, 1 78 1. Dear Sir — I most heartily congratulate 
your Excellency on the glorious victory you have attained 
over the British arms on the 19th of October, at York and 
Gloucester in Virginia, an event, important in the affairs 
of Europe, as well as of America. It will weigh heavy 
in the scale of negotiations, and I hope, secure peace to 
the latter, on the principles of independency and honour, 
with permanent advantages to our generous and illustrious 
allies. I should have had the honour of expressing to your 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

excellency the joy I feel on this occasion, much sooner, 
had I not been engaged on the northern frontier — whence 
I am just returned." He then goes on to recount his ex- 
periences in detail. 

Lord Stirling died at Albany on January 15, 1783, 
after a month's illness undoubtedly brought on from his 
untiring activity in the cause of his country. He was 
fifty-seven years old. General Washington then wrote to 
Lady Stirling: 

"It only remains, as a small but just tribute to the mem- 
ory of Lord Stirling, to express how deeply I share the 
common affliction on being deprived of the public and 
professional assistance, as well as the private friendship, 
of an officer of so high rank, with whom I have lived in 
the strictest habits of amity, and how much those mili- 
tary merits of his Lordship, which rendered him respected 
in his lifetime, are now regretted by the whole army. It 
will doubtless be a soothing consideration in the poig- 
nancy of your grief, to find that the General officers are 
going into mourning for him. Mrs. Washington joins 
with me in requesting that Your Ladyship and Lady 
Kitty will be assured that we feel the tenderest sensibdity 
on this melancholy occasion. With sentiments of perfect 
esteem and respect, I am, etc." 

William Alexander, afterward called Lord Stirling, 
was born in New York in 1726. At the age of thirty- 
one he went to England, and while there became a friend 
of the Duke of Argjde, who, with others, assisted him in 
the prosecution of his claims to the earlship. In this, the 
Duke of Argyle probably felt the claim of ancestral 
friendship — that between the First Earl of Stirling and 
the then Duke of Argyle. The Argyles were at the time 

158 



1699 NOTES 1909 

in possession of the house in the town of Stirling built 
by Alexander, the First Earl of Stirling, and now called 
Argyle's Lodgings. 

While only created earls of Stirling in the Seventeenth 
Century, the Alexanders were of the strain of the Scot- 
tish kings, Alexander II and III; and they were associated 
with the town of Stirling during several previous cen- 
turies, at different times the name of Stirling being con- 
nected with theirs. These considerations undoubtedly in- 
fluenced the English monarch in bestowing the title of 
Earl of Stirling upon William Alexander of Scotland. 

It was while he was in England in pursuance of his 
claims, that the portrait of the American Lord Stirling, 
reproduced in this volume, was painted by Benjamin 
West. 

The blood of the progressionist flowed rightfully in 
Lord Stirling's veins. The cause of the people which he 
espoused in 1776 in America was paralleled in essence 
by the work of the First Earl of Stirling in his efforts in 
behalf of humanity, while associated with James I of 
England, when he caused laws to be passed which, from 
their character, w^ould rate him a sociologist to-day. 
These included, "Laws for the Poor, Laws for Appren- 
tices, Laws for the Indigent, Laws Against Excessive 
Usury, Laws Against Brokers." 



VI 



ACCORDING to many persons now living, it was 
a difficult matter to dispose of the brook and spring 
during the "filling-in" of the Stone House property; but 
the problem was solved by piping the stream, and this is 

159 



THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

the way the water of the once charming little brook now 
finds its way to the lateral canal — previously the arm of 
the creek which extended into the meadow of the Stone 
House. Mr. Rushmore speaks of gathering watercress 
for the table from the brook, and this was kept up even 
after the Cortelyou family had removed from the house. 



VII 



IN views of the house shown in the Valentine Man- 
uals, in Stiles' "History of Brooklyn," and in the Em- 
met Collection, there appears a Colonial-roofed house to 
the left of the Stone House, and apparently on the same 
road. This was the home of Adrian Cortelyou, brother 
of Jaques, and built at the time of the purchase of the 
Stone House. In the frontispiece, the Denton home, 
where lived the owners of the mill-pond, appears just to 
the right of the gable of the Stone House, between that 
and the chimney of the addition. 

VIII 

MR. TEUNIS BERGEN was the agent for trans- 
ferring the property of the Stone House from the 
Cortelyous to the Litchfields. This was in 1846, when 
the atmosphere of all Gowanus was saturated heavily 
with the impending changes, as set forth in Chapter X. 
The announcement of the proposed sale of the property 
added to the intensity of the historic interest which caused 
not only the painting of the house and battlefield by 
Louis Grube, but also the writing of "The Life of Lord 

160 



i699 NOTES 1909 

Stirling," by William Alexander Duer, his grandson — 
written in this same year, 1846, and published the year 
following, 1847, by the New Jersey Historical Society. 



IX 



A LITHOGRAPH of the oil painting of the Stone 
House by Louis Grube was made by N. Currier, a 
New York publisher, at a period between the date of the 
painting (1846) and the year 1 850, at which time the 
firm became Currier & Ives, and thus thereafter signed all 
publications. Here, as in many prints of the period, this 
lithograph while keeping to the main facts of the original 
painting, shows minor changes; there is to be noted the 
presence of the young willow tree near the door — un- 
doubtedly grown to this height during the time intervening 
between the painting of the scene by Mr. Grube and the 
date of the lithograph ; also there are slight changes in the 
grouping of the trees generally, the addition of a hitching 
post, and a porch at the main doorway. This porch is 
plainly out of value in the lithograph, showing it to have 
beeen pictorially extraneous. 

While the grace and mellowness of the painting are lost 
in the lithograph, the latter well presents the artist's his- 
toric motive, the distance particularly having been ren- 
dered with considerable discrimination so as to bring out 
distinctive features. The lithograph is about the same size 
as the painting, and is entitled, "The Old Stone House on 
Long Island, 1699." To the writer's knowledge, two of 
these lithographs remain in existence, one being now in the 
possession of Mrs. Merwin Rushmore. 



161 



j;3 !909 



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